The 25 year periods before and after the turn of the last century saw rapid change in terms of economic stability and social reform. Do they compare with our own experiences in this new "turn of the century?" How much influence did writers such as Mark Twain have on the population? Are there lessons from that time period we can appreciate now, or is history repeating itself?

The purpose of this thread is to explore the past in order to make sense of the present by viewing and discussing some of the social commentary of that time. Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Frederick Douglas, William Faulkner, Carl Sandburg, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes and John Steinbeck (he wasn't published until 1929, but he wrote about this time period) are some of the writers that are credited with shaping public opinion. Pick a favorite and jump in.

To start off, from "The Gilded Age:



This little gem was about the 1800s era of corruption and exploitation at the expense of the public welfare. It can be read for free online at:

The Gilded Age

A good read, not too long. Personally I see a lot of simularities between our own time and this one. Has anyone read it?

Beebs, I've been rereading Dos Passos' USA. It's an incomparable book, literally. It just can't be compared to anything else. It is about the progressive era, not the gilded age, but I think you would like & learn from it.

It might make you a little more crazed than you already are.

Dos Passos became rather conservative & embittered by the end of his life ... best laid plans and laws of good intentions, maybe ... I don't really know; I have not studied it.

But USA is a panorama and more history lessons than I about guarantee you ever had in school.

I've been thinking about mentioning it, but now I am leaving a note here because I am sure tve will read this board. And tve, I want you to start up a board here. Name that forum & some of us shall come. K?

Unfortunately, locbuds are not here at the moment because they are great contributors to those. Hoping they'll be back before too long.

The Allied Powers of the U.S., Great Britain, Japan, Italy, Russia, France, Belgium, Serbia and Montenegro had been victorious.

WTF? What the fark was Greece, then? Not one of the Allied Powers? poopoo, if only my maternal grand-father were around to slap some sense into whoever wrote the above . . .

I would just like to say on behalf of the American people that we apologise for the predjudice and persecution that we've put you Jews, I mean, Greeks through all these years. How we ever could have treated such a proud people with such a rich tradition like complete shitbirds I'll never know.

Say what? I made a specific comment about a specific omission. Hold your horses, there, big guy.

How does John Dos Passos' history compare to the other voices of those that lived at the time? I am familiar with some of his earlier works, and it seems to me he was one of many that became disillusioned after World War I. It is considered the first war where there was 'wholesale slaughter' and a man did not see the faces of his enemies. It was a horrid war fought for the monetary interests of the rich, and it decimated the populations of the countries in it of young men. It makes me think of the stories from our own soldiers in Iraq saying they can't find any 'men of age' in their house to house searches for 'insurgents.'

I never did read his USA, but perhaps I should. I'm not sure that he became embittered at the end of his life, though. I seem to remember Three Soldiers was a rather 'bitter' pronounciation of the 'Great War.' That attitude was surely apparent in much of the literature and art of that period.

Rupert Brooke was a poet that fought and died in that war. I wonder what losses we are seeing, or for that matter, Iraq is seeing:



I hope the locbuds come back soon, too.

I have corrected the egregious oversight, Nomarchy.

Good recall on Three Soldiers. USA is a 'trilogy' about lives & times at the turn of the century -- the first 30 years. A panorama of people and events, very individualistically rendered & with what I find an unforgettable brilliant stylization to running threads of it. It's actually very idealistic. You would like it because much of it rooted in socialist ideals, as per those progressive times. His closest literary connection is probably Whitman. It's told from the perspectives of various invented and different characters, though mini-bios & newsreels weave in the backdrop of the nation & age.

Pick up a copy in a library and read at least the first volume titled, The 42nd Parallel. I have a really kewl old copy with illustrations from someone named Reginald Marsh done for the three-volume edition published in 1946. I recommend that especially for you. It's evocative.

Much obliged.

Mizithra! Baklava! Moussaka!

I could live by sloganeering like that. I even prefer it to the French.

Long time back, C-SPAN had a ('nother) Greek poster whose name I cannot recall. He was about Coconut's vintage. He gave me a recipe for leg of lamb I ran across the other day. Actually printed that baby out. Someday it will get itself made.

hee hee hee

what a find!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



I happen to be a Reginald Marsh fan ma'am. Some have compared him to your favorite, Hopper.



http://www.artnet.com/ag/fineartthumbnails.asp?aid=11192

Kewl. I find him nothing like Hopper, but those sure are just like what is peppered through the book. Wonderful stuff. I think you might be very taken with that book. It will fill your purty smart head with ideas from a different but similar long gone but not quite past.

No, his pen and ink are nothing like his oil paintings. Those are not so similar in style, as they are in subject matter. I believe that is where the comparisons are drawn.

At any rate, I got my copy yesterday. I am a bit disappointed, but I should have known better. It is actually an unread 1960 edition--with all the illustrations--not too many softcovers in 1946, although there were some.



I am thrilled with what I have read so far, though, and just want to thank you, thank you, thank you. It is all three 'books' The 42nd Parallel; Nineteen Nineteen; and The Big Money. I'll look forward to some observances and answers as I read.

Oh and THANK YOU!!!!!

[[[hug]]]

Bee! I just came across this post!

You're a Marsh fan?



Well, I'll bee a monkeys' Unkle...

I've got an original Marsh charcoal sketch hanging on my wall!

Geez!

Welp, it just show's ta go ya...ya just nevah know...



You are just The Coolest!

The War Prayer
by Mark Twain
[1904]
It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.
Sunday morning came--next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams--visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation
God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!
Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory--
An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"
The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside--which the startled minister did--and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

"I come from the Throne--bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import--that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of--except he pause and think.

"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two--one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this--keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

"You have heard your servant's prayer--the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it--that part which the pastor--and also you in your hearts--fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. the whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory--must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle--be Thou near them! With them--in spirit--we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it--for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(After a pause.) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!"
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

Found this at sacred-texts.com

Knee-Deep In June


Tell you what I like the best --
'Long about knee-deep in June,
'Bout the time strawberries melts
On the vine, -- some afternoon
Like to jes' git out and rest,
And not work at nothin' else!

Orchard's where I'd ruther be --
Needn't fence it in fer me! --
Jes' the whole sky overhead,
And the whole airth underneath --
Sort o' so's a man kin breathe
Like he ort, and kind o' has
Elbow-room to keerlessly
Sprawl out len'thways on the grass
Where the shadders thick and soft
As the kivvers on the bed
Mother fixes in the loft
Allus, when they's company!

Jes' a-sort o' lazin there -
S'lazy, 'at you peek and peer
Through the wavin' leaves above,
Like a feller 'ats in love
And don't know it, ner don't keer!
Ever'thing you hear and see
Got some sort o' interest -
Maybe find a bluebird's nest
Tucked up there conveenently
Fer the boy 'at's ap' to be
Up some other apple tree!
Watch the swallers skootin' past
Bout as peert as you could ast;
Er the Bob-white raise and whiz
Where some other's whistle is.

Ketch a shadder down below,
And look up to find the crow --
Er a hawk, - away up there,
'Pearantly froze in the air! --
Hear the old hen squawk, and squat
Over ever' chick she's got,
Suddent-like! - and she knows where
That-air hawk is, well as you! --
You jes' bet yer life she do! --
Eyes a-glitterin' like glass,
Waitin' till he makes a pass!

Pee-wees wingin', to express
My opinion, 's second-class,
Yit you'll hear 'em more er less;
Sapsucks gittin' down to biz,
Weedin' out the lonesomeness;
Mr. Bluejay, full o' sass,
In them baseball clothes o' his,
Sportin' round the orchad jes'
Like he owned the premises!
Sun out in the fields kin sizz,
But flat on yer back, I guess,
In the shade's where glory is!
That's jes' what I'd like to do
Stiddy fer a year er two!

Plague! Ef they ain't somepin' in
Work 'at kind o' goes ag'in'
My convictions! - 'long about
Here in June especially! --
Under some ole apple tree,
Jes' a-restin through and through,
I could git along without
Nothin' else at all to do
Only jes' a-wishin' you
Wuz a-gittin' there like me,
And June wuz eternity!

Lay out there and try to see
Jes' how lazy you kin be! --
Tumble round and souse yer head
In the clover-bloom, er pull
Yer straw hat acrost yer eyes
And peek through it at the skies,
Thinkin' of old chums 'ats dead,
Maybe, smilin' back at you
In betwixt the beautiful
Clouds o'gold and white and blue! --
Month a man kin railly love --
June, you know, I'm talkin' of!

March ain't never nothin' new! --
April's altogether too
Brash fer me! and May -- I jes'
'Bominate its promises, --
Little hints o' sunshine and
Green around the timber-land --
A few blossoms, and a few
Chip-birds, and a sprout er two, --
Drap asleep, and it turns in
Fore daylight and snows ag'in! --
But when June comes - Clear my th'oat
With wild honey! -- Rench my hair
In the dew! And hold my coat!
Whoop out loud! And th'ow my hat! --
June wants me, and I'm to spare!
Spread them shadders anywhere,
I'll get down and waller there,
And obleeged to you at that!

James Whitcomb Riley

Summer Sun


Great is the sun, and wide he goes
Through empty heaven with repose;
And in the blue and glowing days
More thick than rain he showers his rays.

Though closer still the blinds we pull
To keep the shady parlour cool,
Yet he will find a chink or two
To slip his golden fingers through.

The dusty attic spider-clad
He, through the keyhole, maketh glad;
And through the broken edge of tiles
Into the laddered hay-loft smiles.

Meantime his golden face around
He bares to all the garden ground,
And sheds a warm and glittering look
Among the ivy's inmost nook.

Above the hills, along the blue,
Round the bright air with footing true,
To please the child, to paint the rose,
The gardener of the World, he goes.


Robert Louis Stevenson