The presentation may contain content that is deemed objectionable to a particular viewer because of the view expressed or the conduct depicted. The views expressed are provided for learning purposes only, and do not necessarily express the views, or opinions, of Strayer University, your professor, or those participating in videos or other media.
We will have two ten-minute breaks: at 7:30 and 9 pm. I will take roll early and we will have our Discussion before you are dismissed at 10:00 pm.
10:00 Discussion: 10:15 Dismiss
When Nietsche Wept Trailer, 1:58
105 minutes
Viennese doctor Josef Breuer meets with philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche to help him deal with his despair. Starring Ben Cross and Armand Assante. Written and directed by Pinchas Perry.
https://youtu.be/lk-vjBRtsx8
What’s Your Definition of Success? | The Success Series, 2:36
http://youtu.be/ulShj4keKNw
Chapter 10: Case Study
10.1 Introduction to the Case Study
10.2 Exploring the Context
10.3 Taking Sides
10.4 Debating Whether to Act
Chapter 10: Case Study
10.1 Introduction to the Case Study
Review Notes
Arguments
premise
conclusion
Common Fallacies
Begging the Question
Appeal to popularity
Post hoc ergo propter hoc--"after this, therefore because of this"
Appeal to ignorance
Appeal to emotion
Unqualified authority
Ad hominem
False dichotomy
Straw Man
Red herring
Slippery slope
Weak analogy
Evaluating Claims and Sources
Expertise
Limits of Expertise
Questions to Ask When Evaluating Websites
Examples of Rhetorical Techniques Used to Persuade
Emotive Language
Innuendo
Loaded Questions
10.2 Exploring the Context
Global warming
10.3 Taking Sides
How do you convince people?
Do any of the arguments contain fallacies?
Are the persuasive techniques always logical, or are some emotional?
10.4 Debating Whether to Act
This Week
"No Need to Panic About Global Warming," 27 January 2012
"Check with Climate Scientists for Views on Climate," January 2012
Chapter 10: Case Study
Woolmark - Fashion by Feelings Social Media campaign case study, 2:47
How to engage a new generation of wool consumer with a social media campaign by circul8.com.au Have a look at the results! http://www.fashionbyfeelings.com
http://youtu.be/J5R1s8lrKuQ
True News: The Case Against Climate Change, 21:57
http://youtu.be/UNRW5qMRnIU
10.1 Introduction to the Case Study
10.2 Exploring the Context
10.3 Taking Sides
10.4 Debating Whether to Act
Chapter 10: Case Study
10.1 Introduction to the Case Study
Review Notes
Arguments
premise
conclusion
Common Fallacies
Logical Fallacy: Begging the Question-- Created using PowToon -- Free sign up at http://www.powtoon.com/youtube/ -- Create animated videos and animated presentations for free. PowToon is a free tool that allows you to develop cool animated clips and animated presentations for your website, office meeting, sales pitch, nonprofit fundraiser, product launch, video resume, or anything else you could use an animated explainer video. PowToon's animation templates help you create animated presentations and animated explainer videos from scratch. Anyone can produce awesome animations quickly with PowToon, without the cost or hassle other professional animation services require.
In this video, Paul Henne (Duke University) explains the post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc fallacy. This is an informal fallacy committed when a person reasons that because one event happened after another event, the first event caused the second. He also discusses why it is sometimes hasty to conclude that your cat scratch caused your fever.
Video made by Katie Liu for her 5th period English AP class.
For the music:
http://www.youtube.com/user/bmuff#p/u
For commercials:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Pantene
http://www.youtube.com/user/sonyelect...
In this Wireless Philosophy video, Joseph Wu (University of Cambridge) introduces you to the straw man fallacy. This fallacy is committed whenever someone misrepresents an opponent's claim in arguing against it.
Subscribe!
http://bit.ly/1vz5fK9
More on Joseph Wu:
http://bit.ly/1RHIOuV
----
Wi-Phi @ YouTube:
http://bit.ly/1PX0hLu
Wi-Phi @ Khan Academy:
http://bit.ly/1nQJcF7
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/wirelessphi
Facebook:
http://on.fb.me/1XC2tx3
Instagram:
@wiphiofficial
----
Help us caption & translate this video!
http://amara.org/v/ILA9/
If You Don't Identify as a Feminist Are You a Bigot? A False Dichotomy Feat. Gloria Allred, 3:33
What is a false dichotomy (false Dilemma)? This video is a quick crash course on that question exactly. We also look at Gloria Allred's controversial Big Think video claiming that if you aren't a feminist you are a bigot.
The issue with this being they aren't the only two options, it is possible to not identify with a social moment and advocate for women's rights or if you wanted to identify with a social movement you could easily identify as a equalist or egalitarian. Only a Sith deals in absolutes!
Here's a link to the original video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dddgk...
What do you think? Let us know in the comments.
Subscribe to our channel and like this video!
Find us on Facebook and Twitter (links on our channel page)
Thanks for watching!
-R and J
https://youtu.be/zow5dR2_8jc
Anchor Pushes Back Against Clinton Email: "Red Herring."
Watch the tense segment below (the tense moments begin at around the 7-minute mark):
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/05/29/no-anchor-chris-wallace-fiercely-pushes-back-against-democrats-clinton-email-claim-during-tense-interview/
Slippery slope
No, this does not involve tracking authors down and grilling them on their credentials. You are not Liam Neeson, and this is not Taken 3. You're sleuthing methods will need to be a bit more covert.
http://www.shmoop.com/help/cite-shmoop/
Learn more about writing on our website:
http://www.shmoop.com/essay-lab/
https://youtu.be/m_EAxomGhNY
Expertise
Bill Gates on Expertise: 10,000 Hours and a Lifetime of Fanaticism, 3:08
Bill Gates responds to Malcolm Gladwell's theory that it takes 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to master a skill. Apart from acknowledging luck, timing and an open mind, Gates suggests that a successful person survives many cycles of attrition to make it to 10,000 hours of experience. "You do have to be lucky enough, but also fanatical enough to keep going," explains Gates.
-----
Microsoft founder Bill Gates leads a conversation with his father Bill Gates Senior, titled "A Conversation with My Father," in which the pair talk about parenting, philanthropy, commerce and citizenship.
Bill Gates Sr. was an attorney who co-founded his own firm and was on the board of Planned Parenthood.
Since retiring from law in 1998, he has served as the co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and as director for Costco Wholesale. He's also the author of Showing Up for Life: Thoughts on the Gifts of a Lifetime as well as Wealth and Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes.
Bill Gates III is chairman of Microsoft Corporation, the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential. In July 2008, Gates transitioned out of a day-to-day role in the company to spend more time on his global health and education work at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Gates continues to serve as Microsoft's chairman and an advisor on key development projects.
https://youtu.be/CsGihiSE6sM
Limits of Expertise
Questions to Ask When Evaluating Websites
Examples of Rhetorical Techniques Used to Persuade
Emotive Language
Innuendo
Loaded Questions
10.2 Exploring the Context
Global warming
10.3 Taking Sides
How do you convince people?
How To Convince People To Do Whatever You Want, 4:31
http://www.powerfulpersuaders.com/ins... Warning! Amazing secret revealed used by the most devastating experts on psychological persuasion techniques.
http://youtu.be/t7dINpMdMRA
Do any of the arguments contain fallacies?
Are the persuasive techniques always logical, or are some emotional?
Students are bombarded with persuasive techniques in all aspects of their life. They need to recognize the persuasive techniques that are being used to manipulate their thinking and how they can use these same techniques to influence others. Video 1: Appeal to Emotion considers the effects of emotional pleas on the audience. Whether using powerful new images or words in text or speech, appeals to emotion are powerful. Produced in 2008. Get lesson plans for Change My Mind at http://www.westernreservepublicmedia.org/changemymind/
http://youtu.be/bgVTo4K2kRg
10.4 Debating Whether to Act
This Week
"No Need to Panic About Global Warming," 27 January 2012
"Check with Climate Scientists for Views on Climate," January 2012
This exam consists of 25 multiple choice questions and covers the material in Chapters 6 through 10. There are five questions from each chapter. Each question is a possible 4 out of 4 points.
Question 1
A scientist is hired to do research for a tobacco company. Anyone reading the scientist’s conclusions should be aware that the scientist may be:
Question 2
While scientific explanations provide compelling evidence for claims and produce verifiable insights, they are also:
Question 3
Statistics come from gathering and ________data.
Question 4
Many accepted explanations begin as:
Question 5
An explanation is a statement that provides a _________ for why or how something became the way it is.
Question 6
Another term for semantic meaning is:
Question 7
Is the following statement a demonstration in the use of a euphemism?
Your boss tells you are fired from your job during an impromptu meeting.
Question 8
What terms are often used as qualifiers or “weasel words”?
Question 9
To Albert, the word “love” brings up positive feelings about his son; to Raj, it brings up negative feelings about a previous relationship; and to Anthony, it refers to the warm feeling he gets during family gatherings. Which category of meaning are these statements describing?
Question 10
A reader analyzes the four categories of meaning in order to do what?
Question 11
A top official of the government is presenting a case for the continued use of drone airplanes in military conflicts. The official states “Using drones during military surveillance missions is the right course of action because it saves soldiers’ lives.” Which statement is the enthymeme in the official’s argument?
Using drones reduces the number of soldiers needed to conduct surveillance.
The right course of action is to save soldiers’ lives.
Question 12
Which theory is characterized by doing what is best for others instead of oneself?
Question 13
In order to pay for tuition for collegiate studies, a student chooses to sell illegal drugs to finance his education. He understands the implications of his actions, from the destruction of families for those addicted, to the breaking laws preventing the sales of controlled substances. Which theory is he using to justify his actions?
Is it Utilitarianism or is it Ethical Egoism?
Question 14
Consider the following argument:
Premise: Michael took an apple from the farm stand.
Premise: Stealing is wrong.
Conclusion: Therefore, Michael was wrong for stealing the apple.
The statement, “stealing is wrong” is an example of what?
Question 15
A fellow coworker takes someone else’s food from the community refrigerator and eats it. When confronted about the offense, the coworker stated that someone else took his food the previous month. This is an example of a(n) _______________.
Justification, or excuse?
Question 16
Putting in the effort to adequately define the problem is:
Question 17
What is the correct order to decision making and problem solving?
Question 18
If you see a couple of viable options among your top choices, you may benefit from making a(n):
Question 19
What is something that can lead to making good decisions?
Question 20
A good practice when making a decision involves:
Question 21
The two parts of an argument are _______ and _______.
Question 22
When debating solutions to problems related to climate change on a national level, what problem related to climate change has a prominent amount of conflicting political opinions?
Question 23
When listening to people debating a topic, a critical thinker should ignore:
Question 24
The false dichotomy fallacy is a fallacy in which the arguer:
Question 25
A claim and an argument are similar in that they both _____________, however, an argument specifically ____________.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), (Arabic: الدولة الإسلامية ad-Dawlah al-ʾIslāmiyyah), formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is an unrecognized jihadist state in the heart of Middle East, widely regarded as a terrorist organisation by western governments and their allies. In its self-proclaimed status as a caliphate, it claims religious authority over all Muslims across the world and aspires to bring much of the Muslim-inhabited regions of the world under its direct political control.
“ISIL speaks for no religion. Their victims are overwhelmingly Muslim, and no faith teaches people to massacre innocents." Barack Obama
State Department Spokesperson Denies ISIS is Islamist
Clare Lopez spent two decades in the field as a CIA operations officer; was an instructor for military intelligence and special forces students; has been a consultant, intelligence analyst and researcher within the defense sector; and has published two books on Iran. Lopez currently manages the counter-jihad and Shariah programs at the Center for Security Policy, run by Frank Gaffney, former assistant secretary of defense for international security policy during the Reagan administration. Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/08/cia-expert-obama-switchedsides-in-war-on-terror/#dLZEWyJeE3I3jv2O.99
Clare Lopez on Obama's "New Beginning Speech", 5:42
http://youtu.be/D54FLD-Yeks
Ex-CIA Agent: Obama Switched Sides In War On Terror, 20:45
MUSLIMS ATTACK CHRISTIANS IN AMERICA OVER SHARIA LAW.mp4, 11:23
https://youtu.be/dPoOj0Qcnys
The Kominas Sharia Law in the U S A, 3:45
https://youtu.be/_M1cijnO4nA
Peshmerga (Kurdish: پێشمەرگەPêşmerge, Kurdish pronunciation [pɛʃmærˈɡæ]) are the military forces of the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan.
Peshmerga means "one who confronts death" or "one who faces death".
"Pesh" means to stand in front of (loosely translated as to confront or
face) while "merga" means death.[3][4] The overall formal head of the peshmerga is the President of Iraqi Kurdistan. The peshmerga force itself is largely divided and controlled separately by the Democratic Party of Kurdistan and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, although both pledge allegiance to the Kurdistan Regional Government. Efforts are under way to gather the entire force under the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs.[5]Peshmerga forces are responsible for defending the land, people and institutions of the Kurdistan Region.[6]
Because the Iraqi Army is forbidden by law from entering Iraqi Kurdistan,[7][8] the peshmerga, along with other Kurdish security subsidiaries, are responsible for the security of the Kurdish Region.[9][10][11] These subsidiaries include Asayish (official intelligence agency), Parastin u Zanyarî (assisting intelligence agency) and the Zeravani (military police).
Following an unexpected large-scale ISIS offensive against Iraqi Kurdistan in August 2014, peshmerga and other Kurdish forces from neighboring countries have been waging war against ISIS in both Iraq and Syria.
The Kurds are estimated to number, worldwide, around 30–32 million, possibly as high as 37 million,[58] with the majority living in West Asia; however there are significant Kurdish diaspora communities in the cities of western Turkey, in particular Istanbul. A recent Kurdish diaspora has also developed in Western countries, primarily in Germany. The Kurds are the majority population in the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan and in the autonomous region of Rojava, and are a significant minority group in the neighboring countries Turkey and Iran, where Kurdish nationalist movements continue to pursue greater autonomy and cultural rights.
As a whole, the Kurdish people are adherents to a large number of
different religions and creeds, perhaps constituting the most
religiously diverse people of West Asia. Traditionally, Kurds have been
known to take great liberties with their practices. This sentiment is
reflected in the saying "Compared to the unbeliever, the Kurd is a
Muslim".[223]
Today, the majority of Kurds are Sunni Muslim, belonging to the Shafi school.
The Shafi school predominantly relies on the Quran and the Hadiths for Sharia.[3][5] Where passages of Quran and Hadiths are ambiguous, the school first seeks religious law guidance from Ijma – the consensus of Sahabah (Muhammad's companions).[6] If there was no consensus, the Shafi'i school relies on individual opinion (Ijtihad) of the companions of Muhammad, followed by analogy.[3]
The Shafi'i school was, in the early history of Islam, the most followed ideology for Sharia.
However, with the Ottoman Empire's expansion and patronage, it was replaced with the Hanafi school in many parts of the Muslim world.[5] One of the many differences between the Shafi'i and Hanafi schools is that the Shafi'i school does not consider Istihsan
(the personal preference of Islamic legal scholars) as an acceptable
source of religious law because it amounts to "human legislation" of
Islamic law.[7]
Tekoshin stands on a mountain in north Iraq with a rifle slung over her shoulder and a grenade tucked into her belt, facing extremists in "a struggle to liberate women".
Women have been fighting alongside men in the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) to wrest Mount Makhmur in northern Iraq back from Islamic State (IS) extremists, whose treatment of women makes the fight especially personal for the dozens of female fighters on the mountain.
IS-led militants have overrun large areas of Iraq, and the group also controls significant territory in neighbouring Syria, enacting its harshly restrictive and brutal interpretation of Islamic law in both countries.
Tekoshin, 27, says she and other women are fighting the group not only because of the threat it poses to Kurds but because it "is against women's liberation".
"They don't allow women in areas under their control to go to the market" and force them to wear headscarves, she says.
"Our struggle against (the IS) is to defend women from them and from that kind of thinking."
Some 50 women are among the fighters on the mountain from the PKK, which launched an insurgency for self-rule in Turkey in 1984 and has been listed as a terrorist group by countries including the United States, but began peace talks in 2012.
At the entrance to the mountain town of Makhmur, "The Islamic State" was scrawled on a one-storey concrete house, but hastily painted over since the PKK took it back.
Tekoshin says women fought side by side with the men in the battle to force out the extremists.
"We usually organise ourselves in groups of four women, and I command one of the groups," she explained, wearing traditional Kurdish clothing usually seen on men.
"But when it comes to fighting, we break up and we and the men deploy together on different fronts."
Kurdish women have fought alongside men for years in the PKK, its Syrian offshoot the People's Protection Units (YPG), and to a lesser extent, the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces.
https://youtu.be/mGvbx2q1yf0
Helly Luv - Revolution, 7:19, Peshmerga vs. Islamic State
The presentation may contain content that is deemed objectionable to a
particular viewer because of the view expressed or the conduct
depicted. The views expressed are provided for learning purposes only,
and do not necessarily express the views, or opinions, of Strayer
University, your professor, or those participating in videos or other
media.
We will have two ten-minute breaks: at 7:30 and 9:00. Discussion is at 10:00 before you are dismissed at 10 pm.
Question 1: Multiple Choice
What was an implication of Freud's theory of infantile sexuality?
Given Answer:
Childhood was no longer innocent
Correct Answer:
Childhood was no longer innocent
Question 2: Multiple Choice
Why did Virginia Woolf disapprove of Joyce's Ulysses?
Given Answer:
Working-class focus
Correct Answer:
Working-class focus
Question 3: Multiple Choice
Why did the exhibition committee for a 1917 New York show hide Duchamp's "ready-made" entry, Fountain, behind a curtain?
Given Answer:
It was a urinal
Correct Answer:
It was a urinal
Question 4: Multiple Choice
What did the Surrealists attempt to capture in literature and art?
Given Answer:
Thought not controlled by reason
Correct Answer:
Thought not controlled by reason
Question 5: Multiple Choice
How did Salvador Dali claim to have been inspired to paint such works as The Lugubrious Game and The Persistence of Memory?
Given Answer:
Self-hypnosis that led to hallucinations
Correct Answer:
Self-hypnosis that led to hallucinations
Question 6: Multiple Choice
Why was Frank Lloyd Wright's inclusion in the International Style exhibition of 1922 ironic?
Given Answer:
He despised the International Style
Correct Answer:
He despised the International Style
Question 7: Multiple Choice
Why were whites stunned during the 1919 "Red Summer" riots?
Given Answer:
Blacks fought back
Correct Answer:
Blacks fought back
Question 8: Multiple Choice
According to W. E. B. Du Bois, what major problem did African Americans face at the turn of the century?
Given Answer:
Double-consciousness of self
Correct Answer:
Double-consciousness of self
Question 9: Multiple Choice
How did Bessie Smith distinguish her blues songs?
Given Answer:
Adding a chromatic note before a line's last note
Correct Answer:
Adding a chromatic note before a line's last note
Question 10: Multiple Choice
Why were between 75 and 90 percent of the films shown in Europe made in America?
Given Answer:
American films were more profitable than European ones
Correct Answer:
American films were more profitable than European ones
Question 1: Multiple Choice
What was an implication of Freud's theory of infantile sexuality?
Correct Answer:
Childhood was no longer innocent
Question 2: Multiple Choice
In his Surrealist Girl Before a Mirror, what does Picasso portray in his mistress's reflected image?
Given Answer:
The girl's unconscious self
Correct Answer:
The girl's unconscious self
Question 3: Multiple Choice
Why did Austria declare war on Serbia in 1914?
Given Answer:
Assassination of the Austrian archduke
Correct Answer:
Assassination of the Austrian archduke
Question 4: Multiple Choice
According
to the chapter's "Continuity and Change" section, why did so many
Southern African-Americans make the Great Migration to the north between
1915 and 1918?
Given Answer:
Plentiful jobs
Correct Answer:
Plentiful jobs
Question 5: Multiple Choice
According to Freud, how have civilizations failed humans?
Given Answer:
Not controlling aggression
Correct Answer:
Not controlling aggression
Question 6: Multiple Choice
Why does New York Coty's Chrysler Building have stainless steel eagle gargoyles?
Given Answer:
Replicate Chrysler hood ornament
Correct Answer:
Replicate Chrysler hood ornament
Question 7: Multiple Choice
Why
is William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury considered one of the most
daring uses of stream of consciousness in modern fiction?
Given Answer:
One of its narrators is intellectually disabled
Correct Answer:
One of its narrators is intellectually disabled
Question 8: Multiple Choice
Why was Ernest Hemingway judged unfit for military service in World War I?
Given Answer:
Poor eyesight
Correct Answer:
Poor eyesight
Question 9: Multiple Choice
Why were male audiences drawn to the monstrous characters played by horror genre-actor Lon Chaney?
Given Answer:
Identification with the characters' alienation
Correct Answer:
Identification with the characters' alienation
Question 10: Multiple Choice
According to W. E. B. Du Bois, what major problem did African Americans face at the turn of the century?
Given Answer:
Double-consciousness of self
Correct Answer:
Double-consciousness of self
Question 1: Multiple Choice
How did Salvador Dali claim to have been inspired to paint such works as The Lugubrious Game and The Persistence of Memory?
Given Answer:
Self-hypnosis that led to hallucinations
Correct Answer:
Self-hypnosis that led to hallucinations
Question 2: Multiple Choice
Why did the exhibition committee for a 1917 New York show hide Duchamp's "ready-made" entry, Fountain, behind a curtain?
Given Answer:
It was a urinal
Correct Answer:
It was a urinal
Question 3: Multiple Choice
In "A Room of One's Own," what did Virginia Woolf claim women needed to reach their full potential?
Given Answer:
Financial and psychological freedom from men
Correct Answer:
Financial and psychological freedom from men
Question 4: Multiple Choice
In his Surrealist Girl Before a Mirror, what does Picasso portray in his mistress's reflected image?
Given Answer:
The girl's unconscious self
Correct Answer:
The girl's unconscious self
Question 5: Multiple Choice
Why did the World War I soldiers so fear mustard gas?
Correct Answer:
It blinded and choked them
Question 6: Multiple Choice
How did Bessie Smith distinguish her blues songs?
Correct Answer:
Adding a chromatic note before a line's last note
Question 7: Multiple Choice
Who coined the phrase "Jazz Age" to describe 1920s America?
Given Answer:
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Correct Answer:
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Question 8: Multiple Choice
Why were whites stunned during the 1919 "Red Summer" riots?
Given Answer:
Blacks fought back
Correct Answer:
Blacks fought back
Question 9: Multiple Choice
Why was the white-audience-only club in Harlem named the Cotton Club?
Given Answer:
It evoked leisurely plantation life
Correct Answer:
It evoked leisurely plantation life
Question 10: Multiple Choice
What characterized the new architecture known as the International Style?
Correct Answer:
Plain geometries and austere design
Question 1: Multiple Choice
Why did Gertrude Stein declare of the World War I survivors, "You are all a lost generation"?
Given Answer:
They were aimless
Correct Answer:
They were aimless
Question 2: Multiple Choice
As discussed in the chapter's "Continuity and Change" section, why did Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes dislike Paris?
Correct Answer:
Too money-oriented
Question 3: Multiple Choice
In Remembrance of Things Past, how did Marcel Proust defy the constraints of linear time?
Given Answer:
Free association of memories
Correct Answer:
Free association of memories
Question 4: Multiple Choice
What did the Surrealists attempt to capture in literature and art?
Given Answer:
Thought not controlled by reason
Correct Answer:
Thought not controlled by reason
Question 5: Multiple Choice
In The Lugubrious Game, why does Dali position a grasshopper under his self-portrait's nose?
Given Answer:
Dali was terrified of grasshoppers
Correct Answer:
Dali was terrified of grasshoppers
Question 6: Multiple Choice
What artistic movement do the quilts of Gee's Bend, AL, resemble?
Given Answer:
Modern abstract
Correct Answer:
Modern abstract
Question 7: Multiple Choice
How did Bessie Smith distinguish her blues songs?
Given Answer:
Adding a chromatic note before a line's last note
Correct Answer:
Adding a chromatic note before a line's last note
Question 8: Multiple Choice
Why were between 75 and 90 percent of the films shown in Europe made in America?
Correct Answer:
American films were more profitable than European ones
Question 9: Multiple Choice
Why was Ernest Hemingway judged unfit for military service in World War I?
Given Answer:
Poor eyesight
Correct Answer:
Poor eyesight
Question 10: Multiple Choice
Why does New York Coty's Chrysler Building have stainless steel eagle gargoyles?
Given Answer:
Replicate Chrysler hood ornament
Correct Answer:
Replicate Chrysler hood ornament
What was an implication of Freud's theory of infantile sexuality?
Given Answer:
Childhood was no longer innocent
Correct Answer:
Childhood was no longer innocent
Question 2: Multiple Choice
Why did Virginia Woolf disapprove of Joyce's Ulysses?
Given Answer:
Working-class focus
Correct Answer:
Working-class focus
Question 3: Multiple Choice
Why did the exhibition committee for a 1917 New York show hide Duchamp's "ready-made" entry, Fountain, behind a curtain?
Given Answer:
It was a urinal
Correct Answer:
It was a urinal
Question 4: Multiple Choice
What did the Surrealists attempt to capture in literature and art?
Given Answer:
Thought not controlled by reason
Correct Answer:
Thought not controlled by reason
Question 5: Multiple Choice
How did Salvador Dali claim to have been inspired to paint such works as The Lugubrious Game and The Persistence of Memory?
Given Answer:
Self-hypnosis that led to hallucinations
Correct Answer:
Self-hypnosis that led to hallucinations
Question 6: Multiple Choice
Why was Frank Lloyd Wright's inclusion in the International Style exhibition of 1922 ironic?
Given Answer:
He despised the International Style
Correct Answer:
He despised the International Style
Question 7: Multiple Choice
Why were whites stunned during the 1919 "Red Summer" riots?
Given Answer:
Blacks fought back
Correct Answer:
Blacks fought back
Question 8: Multiple Choice
According to W. E. B. Du Bois, what major problem did African Americans face at the turn of the century?
Given Answer:
Double-consciousness of self
Correct Answer:
Double-consciousness of self
Question 9: Multiple Choice
How did Bessie Smith distinguish her blues songs?
Given Answer:
Adding a chromatic note before a line's last note
Correct Answer:
Adding a chromatic note before a line's last note
Question 10: Multiple Choice
Why were between 75 and 90 percent of the films shown in Europe made in America?
Given Answer:
American films were more profitable than European ones
Correct Answer:
American films were more profitable than European ones
Question 1: Multiple Choice
What was an implication of Freud's theory of infantile sexuality?
Correct Answer:
Childhood was no longer innocent
Question 2: Multiple Choice
In his Surrealist Girl Before a Mirror, what does Picasso portray in his mistress's reflected image?
Given Answer:
The girl's unconscious self
Correct Answer:
The girl's unconscious self
Question 3: Multiple Choice
Why did Austria declare war on Serbia in 1914?
Given Answer:
Assassination of the Austrian archduke
Correct Answer:
Assassination of the Austrian archduke
Question 4: Multiple Choice
According
to the chapter's "Continuity and Change" section, why did so many
Southern African-Americans make the Great Migration to the north between
1915 and 1918?
Given Answer:
Plentiful jobs
Correct Answer:
Plentiful jobs
Question 5: Multiple Choice
According to Freud, how have civilizations failed humans?
Given Answer:
Not controlling aggression
Correct Answer:
Not controlling aggression
Question 6: Multiple Choice
Why does New York Coty's Chrysler Building have stainless steel eagle gargoyles?
Given Answer:
Replicate Chrysler hood ornament
Correct Answer:
Replicate Chrysler hood ornament
Question 7: Multiple Choice
Why
is William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury considered one of the most
daring uses of stream of consciousness in modern fiction?
Given Answer:
One of its narrators is intellectually disabled
Correct Answer:
One of its narrators is intellectually disabled
Question 8: Multiple Choice
Why was Ernest Hemingway judged unfit for military service in World War I?
Given Answer:
Poor eyesight
Correct Answer:
Poor eyesight
Question 9: Multiple Choice
Why were male audiences drawn to the monstrous characters played by horror genre-actor Lon Chaney?
Given Answer:
Identification with the characters' alienation
Correct Answer:
Identification with the characters' alienation
Question 10: Multiple Choice
According to W. E. B. Du Bois, what major problem did African Americans face at the turn of the century?
Chapter 35: The Great War and Its Impact
Chapter 36: New York, Skyscraper Culture, and the Jazz Age
HUM112 Music Clips for Week 8
This
week's music clips relate to chapters 35 and 36. Chapter 35 covers no
music, so all selections below are mentioned in Chapter 36. We pick up
with early American Blues and Jazz.
Bessie Smith, Florida-Bound Blues(chap. 36, pp. 1177-1178)
Read pp. 1177-1178 (in chap. 36) and then read the paragraph below. Bessie Smith (lived 1894-1937) recorded this blues song in the mid-1920s. See p. 1178, fig. 36.4 for a photo of her. She was known as the "Empress of the Blues"Read carefully on p. 1178 about her pioneering contributions to the blues when the genre was in its early stages.
Bessie Smith, Mini Bio, 3:20
A
short biography of Bessie Smith, the blues singer who hit the theater
circuit at the age of 18, touring in minstrel shows and cabarets. She
eventually started her own revue, which showcased her distinctive voice
and established Smith as one of the greatest female blues singer to ever
live.
A
short biography of Bessie Smith, the blues singer who hit the theater
circuit at the age of 18, touring in minstrel shows and cabarets. She
eventually started her own revue, which showcased her distinctive voice
and established Smith as one of the greatest female blues singer to ever
live. Subscribe for more Mini Bios: http://bit.ly/1avbyjK From pianists
to presidents, learn it all in our Mini Bios playlist:
http://bit.ly/1dM6ts3 Learn about more sultry singers in our Musicians
playlist: http://bit.ly/1dM104s Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) was an American bluessinger.
Nicknamed The Empress of the Blues, Smith was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s.[1] She is often regarded as one of the greatest singers of her era and, along with Louis Armstrong, a major influence on other jazz vocalists.[2]
Life
Portrait of Bessie Smith, 1936
The 1900 census indicates that Bessie Smith was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee,
in July 1892, a date provided by her mother. However, the 1910 census
recorded her birthday as April 15, 1894, a date that appears on all
subsequent documents and was observed by the entire Smith family. Census
data also contribute to controversy about the size of her family. The
1870 and 1880 censuses report three older half-siblings, while later
interviews with Smith's family and contemporaries did not include these
individuals among her siblings.
Bessie Smith was the daughter of Laura (née Owens) and William Smith. William Smith was a laborer and part-time Baptist preacher (he was listed in the 1870 census as a "minister of the gospel", in Moulton, Lawrence, Alabama.)
He died before his daughter could remember him. By the time she was
nine, she had lost her mother and a brother as well. Her older sister
Viola took charge of caring for her siblings.[3]
To earn money for their impoverished household, Bessie Smith and her brother Andrew began busking on the streets of Chattanooga
as a duet: she singing and dancing, he accompanying her on guitar.
Their favorite location was in front of the White Elephant Saloon at
Thirteenth and Elm streets in the heart of the city's African-American
community.
In 1904, her oldest brother, Clarence, covertly left
home, joining a small traveling troupe owned by Moses Stokes. "If Bessie
had been old enough, she would have gone with him," said Clarence's
widow, Maud. "That's why he left without telling her, but Clarence told
me she was ready, even then. Of course, she was only a child."[4]
In
1912, Clarence returned to Chattanooga with the Stokes troupe. He
arranged for its managers, Lonnie and Cora Fisher, to give Smith an
audition. She was hired as a dancer rather than a singer, because the
company also included the unknown singer, Ma Rainey.
Smith eventually moved on to performing in various chorus lines, making
the "81" Theater in Atlanta her home base. There were times when she
worked in shows on the black-owned T.O.B.A. (Theater Owners Booking Association) circuit. She would rise to become its biggest star after signing with Columbia Records.
By
1923, when she began her recording career, Smith had taken up residence
in Philadelphia. There she met and fell in love with Jack Gee, a
security guard whom she married on June 7, 1923, just as her first
record was released. During the marriage—a stormy one, with infidelity
on both sides—Smith became the highest paid black entertainer of the
day, heading her own shows, which sometimes featured as many as 40
troupers, and touring in her own railroad car. Gee was impressed by the
money, but never adjusted to show business life, or to Smith's bisexuality.
In 1929, when she learned of his affair with another singer, Gertrude
Saunders, Bessie Smith ended the relationship, although neither of them
sought a divorce.
Smith eventually found a common-law husband in an old friend, Richard Morgan, who was Lionel Hampton's uncle and the antithesis of her husband. She stayed with him until her death.[3]
Career
Portrait of Bessie Smith by Carl Van Vechten
All
contemporary accounts indicate that while Rainey did not teach Smith to
sing, she probably helped her develop a stage presence.[5] Smith began forming her own act around 1913, at Atlanta's "81" Theater. By 1920, Smith had established a reputation in the South and along the Eastern Seaboard.
In 1920, sales figures of over 100,000 copies for "Crazy Blues," an Okeh Records recording by singer Mamie Smith
(no relation) pointed to a new market. The recording industry had not
directed its product to blacks, but the success of the record led to a
search for female blues singers. Bessie Smith was signed to Columbia Records in 1923 by Frank Walker,
a talent agent who had seen her perform years earlier. Her first
session for Columbia was February 15, 1923. For most of 1923, her
records were issued on Columbia's regular A- series; when the label
decided to establish a "race records" series, Smith's "Cemetery Blues" (September 26, 1923) was the first issued.
She scored a big hit with her first release, a coupling of "Gulf Coast Blues" and "Downhearted Blues", which its composer Alberta Hunter had already turned into a hit on the Paramount label. Smith became a headliner on the black T.O.B.A. circuit and rose to become its top attraction in the 1920s.[6]
Working a heavy theater schedule during the winter months and doing
tent tours the rest of the year (eventually traveling in her own
railroad car), Smith became the highest-paid black entertainer of her
day.[7] Columbia nicknamed her "Queen of the Blues," but a PR-minded press soon upgraded her title to "Empress".
Smith
had a powerfully strong voice that recorded very well from her first
record, made during the time when recordings were made acoustically.
With the coming of electrical recording (her first electrical recording
was "Cake Walking Babies (From Home)" recorded Tuesday, May 5, 1925),[8]
the sheer power of her voice was even more evident. She was also able
to benefit from the new technology of radio broadcasting, even on
stations that were in the segregated south. For example, after giving a
concert for a white-only audience at a local theater in Memphis,
Tennessee, in October 1923, she then performed a late night concert on
station WMC, where her songs were very well received by the radio
audience.[9]
Smith's
career was cut short by a combination of the Great Depression, which
nearly put the recording industry out of business, and the advent of
"talkies", which spelled the end for vaudeville. She never stopped
performing, however. While the days of elaborate vaudeville shows were
over, Smith continued touring and occasionally singing in clubs. In
1929, she appeared in a Broadway flop called Pansy, a musical in which top critics said she was the only asset.
Film
In 1929, Smith made her only film appearance, starring in a two-reeler titled St. Louis Blues, based on W. C. Handy's song of the same name. In the film, directed by Dudley Murphy and shot in Astoria, she sings the title song accompanied by members of Fletcher Henderson's orchestra, the Hall Johnson Choir, pianist James P. Johnson and a string section—a musical environment radically different from any found on her recordings.
Swing era
In 1933, John Hammond, who also mentored Billie Holiday,
asked Smith to record four sides for Okeh (which had been acquired by
Columbia Records in 1925). He claimed to have found her in
semi-obscurity, working as a hostess in a speakeasy on Philadelphia's
Ridge Avenue.[10]
Bessie Smith worked at Art's Cafe on Ridge Avenue, but not as a hostess
and not until the summer of 1936. In 1933, when she made the Okeh
sides, Bessie was still touring. Hammond was known for his selective
memory and gratuitous embellishments.[11]
Bessie
Smith was paid a non-royalty fee of $37.50 for each selection and these
Okeh sides, which were her last recordings. Made on November 24, 1933,
they serve as a hint of the transformation she made in her performances
as she shifted her blues artistry into something that fit the "swing era". The relatively modern accompaniment is notable. The band included such swing era musicians as trombonistJack Teagarden, trumpeterFrankie Newton, tenor saxophonistChu Berry, pianist Buck Washington, guitarist Bobby Johnson, and bassistBilly Taylor. Benny Goodman, who happened to be recording with Ethel Waters
in the adjoining studio, dropped by and is barely audible on one
selection. Hammond was not entirely pleased with the results, preferring
to have Smith revisit her old blues groove. "Take Me for a Buggy Ride"
and "Gimme a Pigfoot (And a Bottle of Beer)", both written by Wesley Wilson, continue to be ranked among her most popular recordings.[3]Billie Holiday, who credited Smith as her major influence along with Louis Armstrong, would go on to record her first record for Columbia three days later with the same band personnel.
Death
Smith's death certificate
Louis Armstrong, Hotter Than That(chap. 36, pp. 1178-1179)
Read pp. 1178-1179 (in chap. 36) carefully and then read this paragraph. Note the reason that Armstrong and other Dixieland Jazz musicians left New Orleans for Chicago and other northern cities. Notice the scat singing and the "call-and-response".
2.b. Louis Armstrong, What a Wonderful World (not in book; Armstrong is on pp. 1178-9)
Music Matters is a collective of people across the music industry,
including artists, retailers, songwriters, labels and managers, formed
to remind listeners of the significance and value of music.
Words from the filmmaker:
"Music has been my closest ally for as long as I can remember. When
none of my friends cared to hear about my messy prolonged break ups any
more, Jeff Buckley still listened. More importantly he still spoke to
me, even though he was dead. Similarly, Louis Armstrong and I are best
friends now despite the fact that neither of us was ever alive at the
same time. Thanks to his music he means more to me than most of my
'friends' on Facebook. I feel I know more about his history than that of
my own family and the way he blows that horn makes me feel as though he
understands me better than I understand myself.
I felt that
these sentiments were perhaps a bit much for the purposes of my
animated film. Instead I focused on Louis' essence as conveyed through
his own words. The text in my short film is taken from Louis
introduction 'What A Wonderful World' for a live recording of the song."
https://youtu.be/E8HpLq3BVtc
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong's stage personality matched his cornet and trumpet playing.
Louis Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971),[1] nicknamed Satchmo[2] or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and an influential figure in jazz music. Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an "inventive" trumpet and cornet
player, Armstrong was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the
focus of the music from collective improvisation to solo performance.
With his instantly recognizable gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an
influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser,
bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes. He was
also skilled at scat singing (vocalizing using sounds and syllables instead of actual lyrics). Renowned
for his charismatic stage presence and voice almost as much as for his
trumpet-playing, Armstrong's influence extends well beyond jazz music,
and by the end of his career in the 1960s, he was widely regarded as a
profound influence on popular music in general. Armstrong was one of the
first truly popular African-American entertainers to "cross over",
whose skin color was secondary to his music in an America that was
severely racially divided. He rarely publicly politicized his race,
often to the dismay of fellow African-Americans, but took a
well-publicized stand for desegregation during the Little Rock Crisis.
His artistry and personality allowed him socially acceptable access to
the upper echelons of American society that were highly restricted for
black men.
Armstrong often stated that he was born on July 4, 1900,[3][4]
a date that has been noted in many biographies. Although he died in
1971, it was not until the mid-1980s that his true birth date of August
4, 1901 was discovered by researcher Tad Jones through the examination of baptismal records.[5] Armstrong was born into a very poor family in New Orleans, Louisiana,
the grandson of slaves. He spent his youth in poverty, in a rough
neighborhood, known as “the Battlefield”, which was part of the Storyville
legal prostitution district. His father, William Armstrong (1881–1922),
abandoned the family when Louis was an infant and took up with another
woman. His mother, Mary "Mayann" Albert (1886–1927), then left Louis and
his younger sister, Beatrice Armstrong Collins (1903–1987), in the care
of his grandmother, Josephine Armstrong, and at times, his Uncle Isaac.
At five, he moved back to live with his mother and her relatives, and
saw his father only in parades. He attended the Fisk School for Boys,
where he likely had early exposure to music. He brought in some money as
a paperboy and also by finding discarded food and selling it to
restaurants, but it was not enough to keep his mother from prostitution. He hung out in dance halls close to home, where he observed everything from licentious dancing to the quadrille. For extra money he also hauled coal to Storyville, the famed red-light district, and listened to the bands playing in the brothels and dance halls, especially Pete Lala's where Joe "King" Oliver performed and other famous musicians would drop in to jam. After
dropping out of the Fisk School at age eleven, Armstrong joined a
quartet of boys who sang in the streets for money. But he also started
to get into trouble. Cornet player Bunk Johnson said he taught Armstrong (then 11) to play by ear at Dago Tony's Tonk in New Orleans,[6]
although in his later years Armstrong gave the credit to Oliver.
Armstrong hardly looked back at his youth as the worst of times but
instead drew inspiration from it, “Every time I close my eyes blowing
that trumpet of mine—I look right in the heart of good old New
Orleans... It has given me something to live for.”[7] He also worked for a Lithuanian-Jewishimmigrant
family, the Karnofskys, who had a junk hauling business and gave him
odd jobs. They took him in and treated him as almost a family member,
knowing he lived without a father, and would feed and nurture him.[8] He later wrote a memoir of his relationship with the Karnofskys titled, Louis Armstrong + the Jewish Family in New Orleans, La., the Year of 1907.
In it he describes his discovery that this family was also subject to
discrimination by "other white folks' nationalities who felt that they
were better than the Jewish race... I was only seven years old but I
could easily see the ungodly treatment that the White Folks were handing
the poor Jewish family whom I worked for."[9] Armstrong wore a Star of David pendant for the rest of his life and wrote about what he learned from them: "how to live—real life and determination."[10]
The influence of Karnofsky is remembered in New Orleans by the
Karnofsky Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to accepting
donated musical instruments to "put them into the hands of an eager
child who could not otherwise take part in a wonderful learning
experience."[11]
Armstrong with his first trumpet instructor, Peter Davis, in 1965
Armstrong developed his cornet
playing skills by playing in the band of the New Orleans Home for
Colored Waifs, where he had been sent multiple times for general
delinquency, most notably for a long term after firing his stepfather's
pistol into the air at a New Year's Eve
celebration, as police records confirm. Professor Peter Davis (who
frequently appeared at the Home at the request of its administrator,
Captain Joseph Jones)[12]
instilled discipline in and provided musical training to the otherwise
self-taught Armstrong. Eventually, Davis made Armstrong the band leader.
The Home band played around New Orleans and the thirteen-year-old Louis
began to draw attention by his cornet playing, starting him on a
musical career.[13]
At fourteen he was released from the Home, living again with his father
and new stepmother and then back with his mother and also back to the
streets and their temptations. Armstrong got his first dance hall job at
Henry Ponce’s where Black Benny became his protector and guide. He hauled coal by day and played his cornet at night. He played in the city's frequent brass band parades and listened to older musicians every chance he got, learning from Bunk Johnson, Buddy Petit, Kid Ory, and above all, Joe "King" Oliver, who acted as a mentor and father figure to the young musician. Later, he played in the brass bands and riverboats of New Orleans, and began traveling with the well-regarded band of Fate Marable, which toured on a steamboat up and down the Mississippi River.
He described his time with Marable as "going to the University," since
it gave him a much wider experience working with written arrangements. In 1919, Joe Oliver decided to go north and resigned his position in Kid Ory's band; Armstrong replaced him. He also became second trumpet for the Tuxedo Brass Band, a society band.[14]
"Mack the Knife, 3:28 https://youtu.be/6YTS9jFB084 Through
all his riverboat experience Armstrong’s musicianship began to mature
and expand. At twenty, he could read music and he started to be featured
in extended trumpet solos, one of the first jazzmen to do this,
injecting his own personality and style into his solo turns. He had
learned how to create a unique sound and also started using singing and
patter in his performances.[15]
In 1922, Armstrong joined the exodus to Chicago, where he had been
invited by his mentor, Joe "King" Oliver, to join his Creole Jazz Band
and where he could make a sufficient income so that he no longer needed
to supplement his music with day labor jobs. It was a boom time in
Chicago and though race relations were poor, the “Windy City” was
teeming with jobs for black people, who were making good wages in
factories and had plenty to spend on entertainment. Oliver's band
was the best and most influential hot jazz band in Chicago in the early
1920s, at a time when Chicago was the center of the jazz universe.
Armstrong lived luxuriously in Chicago, in his own apartment with his
own private bath (his first). Excited as he was to be in Chicago, he
began his career-long pastime of writing nostalgic letters to friends in
New Orleans. As Armstrong’s reputation grew, he was challenged to
“cutting contests” by hornmen trying to displace the new phenom, who
could blow two hundred high C’s in a row.[16] Armstrong made his first recordings on the Gennett and Okeh
labels (jazz records were starting to boom across the country),
including taking some solos and breaks, while playing second cornet in
Oliver's band in 1923. At this time, he met Hoagy Carmichael (with whom he would collaborate later) who was introduced by friend Bix Beiderbecke, who now had his own Chicago band. Armstrong enjoyed working with Oliver, but Louis' second wife, pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong,
urged him to seek more prominent billing and develop his newer style
away from the influence of Oliver. Armstrong took the advice of his wife
and left Oliver's band. For a year Armstrong played in Fletcher Henderson's
band in New York on many recordings. After playing in New York,
Armstrong returned to Chicago, playing in large orchestras; there he
created his most important early recordings.[17]
Lil had her husband play classical music in church concerts to broaden
his skill and improve his solo play and she prodded him into wearing
more stylish attire to make him look sharp and to better offset his
growing girth. Lil’s influence eventually undermined Armstrong’s
relationship with his mentor, especially concerning his salary and
additional moneys that Oliver held back from Armstrong and other band
members. Armstrong and Oliver parted amicably in 1924. Shortly
afterward, Armstrong received an invitation to go to New York City to
play with the Fletcher Henderson
Orchestra, the top African-American band of the day. Armstrong switched
to the trumpet to blend in better with the other musicians in his
section. His influence upon Henderson's tenor sax soloist, Coleman Hawkins, can be judged by listening to the records made by the band during this period. Armstrong
quickly adapted to the more tightly controlled style of Henderson,
playing trumpet and even experimenting with the trombone and the other
members quickly took up Armstrong’s emotional, expressive pulse. Soon
his act included singing and telling tales of New Orleans characters,
especially preachers.[18] The Henderson Orchestra was playing in the best venues for white-only patrons, including the famed Roseland Ballroom, featuring the classy arrangements of Don Redman. Duke Ellington’s
orchestra would go to Roseland to catch Armstrong’s performances and
young hornmen around town tried in vain to outplay him, splitting their
lips in their attempts. During this time, Armstrong made many recordings on the side, arranged by an old friend from New Orleans, pianist Clarence Williams;
these included small jazz band sides with the Williams Blue Five (some
of the best pairing Armstrong with one of Armstrong's few rivals in
fiery technique and ideas, Sidney Bechet) and a series of accompaniments with blues singers, including Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Alberta Hunter. Armstrong
returned to Chicago in 1925 due mostly to the urging of his wife, who
wanted to pump up Armstrong’s career and income. He was content in New
York but later would concede that she was right and that the Henderson
Orchestra was limiting his artistic growth. In publicity, much to his
chagrin, she billed him as “the World’s Greatest Trumpet Player”. At
first, he was actually a member of the Lil Hardin Armstrong Band and
working for his wife.[19] He began recording under his own name for Okeh with his famous Hot Five and Hot Seven groups, producing hits such as "Potato Head Blues", "Muggles", (a reference to marijuana, for which Armstrong had a lifelong fondness), and "West End Blues", the music of which set the standard and the agenda for jazz for many years to come. The group included Kid Ory (trombone), Johnny Dodds (clarinet), Johnny St. Cyr
(banjo), wife Lil on piano, and usually no drummer. Armstrong’s
bandleading style was easygoing, as St. Cyr noted, "One felt so relaxed
working with him, and he was very broad-minded . . . always did his best
to feature each individual."[20] His recordings soon after with pianist Earl "Fatha" Hines (most famously their 1928 Weatherbird
duet) and Armstrong's trumpet introduction to "West End Blues" remain
some of the most famous and influential improvisations in jazz history.
Armstrong was now free to develop his personal style as he wished, which
included a heavy dose of effervescent jive, such as "whip that thing,
Miss Lil" and "Mr. Johnny Dodds, Aw, do that clarinet, boy!"[21] Armstrong also played with Erskine Tate’s
Little Symphony, actually a quintet, which played mostly at the Vendome
Theatre. They furnished music for silent movies and live shows,
including jazz versions of classical music, such as "Madame Butterfly,"
which gave Armstrong experience with longer forms of music and with
hosting before a large audience. He began to scat sing (improvised vocal
jazz using nonsensical words) and was among the first to record it, on "Heebie Jeebies"
in 1926. The recording was so popular that the group became the most
famous jazz band in the United States, even though they had not
performed live to any great extent. Young musicians across the country,
black or white, were turned on by Armstrong’s new type of jazz.[22]
After separating from Lil, Armstrong started to play at the Sunset Café for Al Capone's associate Joe Glaser in the Carroll Dickerson Orchestra, with Earl Hines on piano, which was soon renamed Louis Armstrong and his Stompers,[23]
though Hines was the music director and Glaser managed the orchestra.
Hines and Armstrong became fast friends and successful collaborators.[24] Armstrong returned to New York, in 1929, where he played in the pit orchestra of the successful musical Hot Chocolate, an all-black revue written by Andy Razaf and pianist/composer Fats Waller. He also made a cameo appearance as a vocalist, regularly stealing the show with his rendition of "Ain't Misbehavin'", his version of the song becoming his biggest selling record to date.[25] Armstrong started to work at Connie's Inn in Harlem, chief rival to the Cotton Club, a venue for elaborately staged floor shows,[26] and a front for gangster Dutch Schultz. Armstrong also had considerable success with vocal recordings, including versions of famous songs composed by his old friend Hoagy Carmichael. His 1930s recordings took full advantage of the new RCAribbon microphone, introduced in 1931, which imparted a characteristic warmth to vocals and immediately became an intrinsic part of the 'crooning' sound of artists like Bing Crosby. Armstrong's famous interpretation of Hoagy Carmichael's "Stardust"
became one of the most successful versions of this song ever recorded,
showcasing Armstrong's unique vocal sound and style and his innovative
approach to singing songs that had already become standards. Armstrong's radical re-working of Sidney Arodin and Carmichael's "Lazy River"
(recorded in 1931) encapsulated many features of his groundbreaking
approach to melody and phrasing. The song begins with a brief trumpet
solo, then the main melody is stated by sobbing horns, memorably
punctuated by Armstrong's growling interjections at the end of each bar:
"Yeah! ..."Uh-huh" ..."Sure" ... "Way down, way down." In the first
verse, he ignores the notated melody entirely and sings as if playing a
trumpet solo, pitching most of the first line on a single note and using
strongly syncopated phrasing. In the second stanza he breaks into an
almost fully improvised melody, which then evolves into a classic
passage of Armstrong "scat singing".
Louis Armstrong in 1953
As
with his trumpet playing, Armstrong's vocal innovations served as a
foundation stone for the art of jazz vocal interpretation. The uniquely
gritty coloration of his voice became a musical archetype
that was much imitated and endlessly impersonated. His scat singing
style was enriched by his matchless experience as a trumpet soloist. His
resonant, velvety lower-register tone and bubbling cadences on sides
such as "Lazy River" exerted a huge influence on younger white singers
such as Bing Crosby. The Great Depression
of the early 1930s was especially hard on the jazz scene. The Cotton
Club closed in 1936 after a long downward spiral, and many musicians
stopped playing altogether as club dates evaporated. Bix Beiderbecke
died and Fletcher Henderson’s band broke up. King Oliver made a few
records but otherwise struggled. Sidney Bechet became a tailor and Kid
Ory returned to New Orleans and raised chickens.[27] Armstrong moved to Los Angeles in 1930 to seek new opportunities. He played at the New Cotton Club in Los Angeles with Lionel Hampton
on drums. The band drew the Hollywood crowd, which could still afford a
lavish night life, while radio broadcasts from the club connected with
younger audiences at home. Bing Crosby and many other celebrities were
regulars at the club. In 1931, Armstrong appeared in his first movie, Ex-Flame. Armstrong was convicted of marijuana possession but received a suspended sentence.[28] He returned to Chicago in late 1931 and played in bands more in the Guy Lombardo vein and he recorded more standards. When the mob insisted that he get out of town,[29]
Armstrong visited New Orleans, got a hero’s welcome and saw old
friends. He sponsored a local baseball team known as “Armstrong’s Secret
Nine” and had a cigar named after him.[30]
But soon he was on the road again and after a tour across the country
shadowed by the mob, Armstrong decided to go to Europe to escape. After
returning to the United States, he undertook several exhausting tours.
His agent Johnny Collins’ erratic behavior and his own spending ways
left Armstrong short of cash. Breach of contract violations plagued him.
Finally, he hired Joe Glaser as his new manager, a tough mob-connected
wheeler-dealer, who began to straighten out his legal mess, his mob
troubles, and his debts. Armstrong also began to experience problems
with his fingers and lips, which were aggravated by his unorthodox
playing style. As a result he branched out, developing his vocal style
and making his first theatrical appearances. He appeared in movies
again, including Crosby's 1936 hit Pennies from Heaven. In 1937, Armstrong substituted for Rudy Vallee on the CBS radio network and became the first African American to host a sponsored, national broadcast.[31] After spending many years on the road, Armstrong settled permanently in Queens, New York in 1943 in contentment with his fourth wife, Lucille. Although subject to the vicissitudes of Tin Pan Alley and the gangster-ridden music business, as well as anti-black prejudice, he continued to develop his playing. He recorded Hoagy Carmichael's Rockin' Chair for Okeh Records. During
the subsequent thirty years, Armstrong played more than three hundred
gigs a year. Bookings for big bands tapered off during the 1940s due to
changes in public tastes: ballrooms closed, and there was competition
from television and from other types of music becoming more popular than
big band music. It became impossible under such circumstances to
support and finance a 16-piece touring band.
The All Stars
Louis Armstrong in 1953
Following
a highly successful small-group jazz concert at New York Town Hall on
May 17, 1947, featuring Armstrong with trombonist/singer Jack Teagarden, Armstrong's manager Joe Glaser
dissolved the Armstrong big band on August 13, 1947 and established a
six-piece small group featuring Armstrong with (initially) Teagarden, Earl Hines and other top swing and dixieland musicians, most of them ex-big band leaders. The new group was announced at the opening of Billy Berg's Supper Club. This group was called Louis Armstrong and his All Stars and included at various times Earl "Fatha" Hines, Barney Bigard, Edmond Hall, Jack Teagarden, Trummy Young, Arvell Shaw, Billy Kyle, Marty Napoleon, Big Sid Catlett, Cozy Cole, Tyree Glenn, Barrett Deems, Joe Darensbourg and the Filipino-American percussionist Danny Barcelona.
During this period, Armstrong made many recordings and appeared in over
thirty films. He was the first jazz musician to appear on the cover of Time Magazine on February 21, 1949.) In 1948, he participated in the Nice Jazz Festival where Suzy Delair sings for the first time in public C'est si bon by Henri Betti and André Hornez.
Love this song, Armstrong asked the editor if he can make a recording
in America what the publisher allows it. Armstrong recorded the first
American version of C'est si bon June 26, 1950 in New York with English lyrics by Jerry Seelen. On its release, the disc becomes a worldwide success. In 1964, he recorded his biggest-selling record, "Hello, Dolly!", a song by Jerry Herman, originally sung by Carol Channing.
Armstrong's cover of the song, which lasted 22 weeks on the Hot 100,
longer than any other record that year, went to No. 1 on the pop chart,
making Armstrong (age 62 years, 9 months, 5 days) the oldest person to
date to ever accomplish that feat. In the process, Armstrong dislodged The Beatles from the No. 1 position they had occupied for 14 consecutive weeks with three different songs.[32] Armstrong
kept up his busy tour schedule until a few years before his death in
1971. In his later years he would sometimes play some of his numerous gigs
by rote, but other times would enliven the most mundane gig with his
vigorous playing, often to the astonishment of his band. He also toured
Africa, Europe, and Asia under sponsorship of the US State Department with great success, earning the nickname "Ambassador Satch " and inspiring Dave Brubeck to compose his jazz musical The Real Ambassadors[33] While
failing health restricted his schedule in his last years, within those
limitations he continued playing until the day he died.
Judging
from home recorded tapes now in our Museum Collections, Louis
pronounced his own name as “Lewis.” On his 1964 record “Hello, Dolly,”
he sings, “This is Lewis, Dolly” but in 1933 he made a record called
“Laughin’ Louie.” Many broadcast announcers, fans, and acquaintances
called him “Louie” and in a videotaped interview from 1983 Lucille
Armstrong calls her late husband “Louie” as well. Musicians and close
friends usually called him “Pops.”[40]
In
a memoir written for Robert Goffin between 1943 and 1944, Armstrong
states, "All white folks call me Louie," suggesting that he himself did
not.[41] That said, Armstrong was registered as "Lewie" for the 1920 U.S. Census. On various live records he's called "Louie" on stage, such as on the 1952 "Can Anyone Explain?" from the live album In Scandinavia vol.1. It should also be noted that "Lewie" is the French pronunciation of "Louis" and is commonly used in Louisiana.
Family
On March 19, 1918, Louis married Daisy Parker, a prostitute from Gretna, Louisiana.[42]
They adopted a 3-year-old boy, Clarence Armstrong, whose mother, Louis'
cousin Flora, died soon after giving birth. Clarence Armstrong was
mentally disabled (the result of a head injury at an early age) and
Louis would spend the rest of his life taking care of him.[43] Louis' marriage to Parker failed quickly and they separated in 1923.
Armstrong with Lucille Wilson (c. 1960s)
On February 4, 1924, Louis married Lil Hardin Armstrong,
who was Oliver's pianist and had also divorced her first spouse only a
few years earlier. His second wife was instrumental in developing his
career, but in the late 1920s Hardin and Louis grew apart. They
separated in 1931 and divorced in 1938, after which Louis married
longtime girlfriend Alpha Smith.[44]
His marriage to his third wife lasted four years, and they divorced in
1942. Louis then married Lucille Wilson, a singer at the Cotton Club, to whom he was married until his death in 1971.[45] Armstrong's marriages never produced any offspring, though he loved children.[46]
However, in December 2012, 57-year-old Sharon Preston-Folta claimed to
be his daughter, from a 1950s affair between Armstrong and Lucille
"Sweets" Preston, a dancer at the Cotton Club.[47]
In a 1955 letter to his manager, Joe Glaser, Armstrong affirmed his
belief that Preston's newborn baby was his daughter, and ordered Glaser
to pay a monthly allowance of $400 to mother and child.[48]
Personality
Armstrong
was noted for his colorful and charismatic personality. His own
biography vexed some biographers and historians, as he had a habit of
telling tales, particularly of his early childhood, when he was less
scrutinized, and his embellishments of his history often lack
consistency. He was not only an entertainer, Armstrong was also a
leading personality of the day. He was beloved by an American public
that gave even the greatest African American
performers little access beyond their public celebrity, and he was able
to live a private life of access and privilege accorded to few other
African Americans during that era. He generally remained
politically neutral, which at times alienated him from members of the
black community who looked to him to use his prominence with white
America to become more of an outspoken figure during the Civil Rights Era of U.S. history.
The nicknames Satchmo and Satch are short for Satchelmouth.
Like many things in Armstrong's life, which was filled with colorful
stories both real and imagined, many of his own telling, the nickname
has many possible origins. The most common tale that biographers
tell is the story of Armstrong as a young boy dancing for pennies in the
streets of New Orleans, who would scoop up the coins off of the streets
and stick them into his mouth to avoid having the bigger children steal
them from him. Someone dubbed him "satchel mouth" for his mouth acting
as a satchel. Another tale is that because of his large mouth, he was nicknamed "satchel mouth" which became shortened to Satchmo. Early on he was also known as Dipper, short for Dippermouth, a reference to the piece Dippermouth Blues.[49] and something of a riff on his unusual embouchure. The nickname Pops
came from Armstrong's own tendency to forget people's names and simply
call them "pops" instead. The nickname was soon turned on Armstrong
himself. It was used as the title of a 2010 biography of Armstrong by Terry Teachout.They also called him the king of jazz.
Armstrong's autograph from the 1960s
Armstrong and race
Armstrong was largely accepted into white
society, both on stage and off, a privilege reserved for very few
African-American public figures, and usually those of either exceptional
talent or fair skin tone. As his fame grew, so did his access to the
finer things in life usually denied to a black man, even a famous one.
His renown was such that he dined in the best restaurants and stayed in
hotels usually exclusively for whites.[50] It
was a power and privilege that he enjoyed, although he was very careful
not to flaunt it with fellow performers of color, and privately, he
shared what access that he could with friends and fellow musicians. That
still did not prevent members of the African-American community,
particularly in the late 1950s to the early 1970s, from calling him an Uncle Tom, a black-on-black racial epithet for someone who kowtowed to white society at the expense of their own racial identity. Billie Holiday countered, however, "Of course Pops toms, but he toms from the heart."[51] He was criticized for accepting the title of "King of The Zulus" for Mardi Gras in 1949. In the New Orleans African-American community it is an honored role as the head of leading black Carnival Krewe, but bewildering or offensive to outsiders with their traditional costume of grass-skirts and blackface makeup satirizing southern white attitudes. Some
musicians criticized Armstrong for playing in front of segregated
audiences, and for not taking a strong enough stand in the civil rights movement.[52] The few exceptions made it more effective when he did speak out. Armstrong's criticism of President Eisenhower, calling him "two-faced" and "gutless" because of his inaction during the conflict over school desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957 made national news. As a protest, Armstrong canceled a planned tour of the Soviet Union on behalf of the State Department
saying "The way they're treating my people in the South, the government
can go to hell" and that he could not represent his government abroad
when it was in conflict with its own people.[53] Six days after Armstrong's comments, Eisenhower ordered Federal troops to Little Rock to escort students into the school.[54] The FBI kept a file on Armstrong, for his outspokenness about integration.[55]
Religion
When asked about his religion, Armstrong would answer that he was raised a Baptist, always wore a Star of David, and was friends with the Pope.[56]
Armstrong wore the Star of David in honor of the Karnofsky family, who
took him in as a child and lent him the money to buy his first cornet. Louis Armstrong was, in fact, baptized as a Catholic at the Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in New Orleans,[56] and he met popes Pius XII and Paul VI,
though there is no evidence that he considered himself Catholic.
Armstrong seems to have been tolerant towards various religions, but
also found humor in them.
Personal habits
Purging
Armstrong was also greatly concerned with his health. He made frequent use of laxatives
as a means of controlling his weight, a practice he advocated both to
personal acquaintances and in the diet plans he published under the
title Lose Weight the Satchmo Way. Armstrong's laxative of preference in his younger days was Pluto Water, but he then became an enthusiastic convert when he discovered the herbal remedy Swiss Kriss.
He would extol its virtues to anyone who would listen and pass out
packets to everyone he encountered, including members of the British Royal Family.
(Armstrong also appeared in humorous, albeit risqué, cards that he had
printed to send out to friends; the cards bore a picture of him sitting
on a toilet—as viewed through a keyhole—with the slogan "Satch says, 'Leave it all behind ya!'")[57] The cards have sometimes been incorrectly described as ads for Swiss Kriss.[58] In a live recording of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" with Velma Middleton, he changes the lyric from "Put another record on while I pour" to "Take some Swiss Kriss while I pour."[59]
Love of food
The
concern with his health and weight was balanced by his love of food,
reflected in such songs as "Cheesecake", "Cornet Chop Suey,"[60] though "Struttin’ with Some Barbecue" was written about a fine-looking companion, not about food.[61] He kept a strong connection throughout his life to the cooking of New Orleans, always signing his letters, "Red beans and ricely yours..."[62]
Writings
Armstrong’s
gregariousness extended to writing. On the road, he wrote constantly,
sharing favorite themes of his life with correspondents around the
world. He avidly typed or wrote on whatever stationery was at hand,
recording instant takes on music, sex, food, childhood memories, his
heavy "medicinal" marijuana use—and even his bowel movements, which he gleefully described.[63] He had a fondness for lewd jokes and dirty limericks as well.
Social organizations
Louis Armstrong was not, as is often claimed, a Freemason.
Although he is usually listed as being a member of Montgomery Lodge No.
18 (Prince Hall) in New York, no such lodge has ever existed. Armstrong
states in his autobiography, however, that he was a member of the Knights of Pythias, which is not a Masonic group.[64]
Music
Horn playing and early jazz
Selmer trumpet, given as a gift by King George V of the United Kingdom to Louis Armstrong in 1933
In
his early years, Armstrong was best known for his virtuosity with the
cornet and trumpet. The greatest trumpet playing of his early years can
be heard on his Hot Five and Hot Seven records, as well as the Red Onion Jazz Babies. Armstrong's improvisations were daring and sophisticated for the time, while often subtle and melodic. He
often essentially re-composed pop-tunes he played, making them more
interesting. Armstrong's playing is filled with original melodies,
creative leaps, and subtle relaxed or driving rhythms. Armstrong's
playing technique, honed by constant practice, extended the range, tone
and capabilities of the trumpet. In these records, Armstrong almost
single-handedly created the role of the jazz soloist, taking what was
essentially a collective folk music and turning it into an art form with
tremendous possibilities for individual expression. Armstrong's
work in the 1920s shows him playing at the outer limits of his
abilities. The Hot Five records, especially, often have minor flubs and
missed notes, which do little to detract from listening enjoyment since
the energy of the spontaneous performance comes through. By the
mid-1930s, Armstrong achieved a smooth assurance, knowing exactly what
he could do and carrying out his ideas to perfection. He was one
of the first artists to use recordings of his performances to improve
himself. Armstrong was an avid audiophile. He had a large collection of
recordings, including reel-to-reel tapes, which he took on the road with
him in a trunk during his later career. He enjoyed listening to his own
recordings, and comparing his performances musically. In the den of his
home, he had the latest audio equipment and would sometimes rehearse
and record along with his older recordings or the radio.[65]
Vocal popularity
As his music progressed and popularity grew, his singing also became very important. Armstrong was not the first to record scat singing, but he was masterful at it and helped popularize it. He had a hit with his playing and scat singing on "Heebie Jeebies"
when, according to some legends, the sheet music fell on the floor and
he simply started singing nonsense syllables. Armstrong stated in his
memoirs that this actually occurred. He also sang out "I done forgot the
words" in the middle of recording "I'm A Ding Dong Daddy From Dumas." Such
records were hits and scat singing became a major part of his
performances. Long before this, however, Armstrong was playing around
with his vocals, shortening and lengthening phrases, interjecting
improvisations, using his voice as creatively as his trumpet.
Colleagues and followers
During
his long career he played and sang with some of the most important
instrumentalists and vocalists of the time; among them were Bing Crosby, Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, Earl Hines, the singing brakemanJimmie Rodgers, Bessie Smith and perhaps most famously Ella Fitzgerald. His
influence upon Bing Crosby is particularly important with regard to the
subsequent development of popular music: Crosby admired and copied
Armstrong, as is evident on many of his early recordings, notably "Just
One More Chance" (1931). The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz describes Crosby's debt to Armstrong in precise detail, although it does not acknowledge Armstrong by name:
Crosby...
was important in introducing into the mainstream of popular singing an
Afro-American concept of song as a lyrical extension of speech... His
techniques—easing the weight of the breath on the vocal cords, passing
into a head voice at a low register, using forward production to aid distinct enunciation, singing on consonants (a practice of black singers), and making discreet use of appoggiaturas, mordents, and slurs to emphasize the text—were emulated by nearly all later popular singers.
Armstrong recorded two albums with Ella Fitzgerald: Ella and Louis, and Ella and Louis Again for Verve Records, with the sessions featuring the backing musicianship of the Oscar Peterson Trio and drummers Buddy Rich (on the first album), and Louie Bellson (on the second). Norman Granz then had the vision for Ella and Louis to record Porgy and Bess which is the most famous and critically acclaimed version of the Gerswhin brothers' masterpiece. His recordings for Columbia Records, Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy (1954) and Satch Plays Fats (all Fats Waller
tunes) (1955) were both being considered masterpieces, as well as
moderately well selling. In 1961 the All Stars participated in two
albums - "The Great Summit" and "The Great Reunion" (now together as a
single disc) with Duke Ellington.
The albums feature many of Ellington's most famous compositions (as
well as two exclusive cuts) with Duke sitting in on piano. His
participation in Dave Brubeck's high-concept jazz musical The Real Ambassadors (1963) was critically acclaimed, and features "Summer Song," one of Armstrong's most popular vocal efforts.
Louis Armstrong in 1966
In
1964 his recording of the song "Hello Dolly" went to number one. An
album of the same title was quickly created around the song, and also
shot to number one (knocking The Beatles
off the top of the chart). The album sold very well for the rest of the
year, quickly going "Gold" (500,000). His performance of "Hello Dolly"
won for best male pop vocal performance at the 1964 Grammy Awards.
Armstrong enjoyed many types of music, from blues to the arrangements of Guy Lombardo, to Latin American folksongs, to classical symphonies and opera.
Armstrong incorporated influences from all these sources into his
performances, sometimes to the bewilderment of fans who wanted him to
stay in convenient narrow categories. Armstrong was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an early influence. Some of his solos from the 1950s, such as the hard rocking version of "St. Louis Blues" from the WC Handy album, show that the influence went in both directions.
Literature, radio, films and TV
Armstrong
appeared in more than a dozen Hollywood films, usually playing a band
leader or musician. His most familiar role was as the bandleader cum narrator in the 1956 musical, High Society, in which he sang the title song and performed a duet with Bing Crosby on "Now You Has Jazz". In 1947, he played himself in the movie New Orleans opposite Billie Holiday, which chronicled the demise of the Storyville district and the ensuing exodus of musicians from New Orleans to Chicago.[69] In the 1959 film, The Five Pennies (the story of the cornetist Red Nichols), Armstrong played himself as well as singing and playing several classic numbers. With Danny Kaye
Armstrong performed a duet of "When the Saints Go Marching In" during
which Kaye impersonated Armstrong. Armstrong also had a part in the film
alongside James Stewart in The Glenn Miller Story in which Glenn (played by Stewart) jammed with Armstrong and a few other noted musicians of the time. He
was the first African American to host a nationally broadcast radio
show in the 1930s. In 1969, Armstrong had a cameo role in the film
version of Hello, Dolly! as the bandleader, Louis, to which he sang the title song with actress Barbra Streisand. His solo recording of "Hello, Dolly!" is one of his most recognizable performances.
Armstrong played a bandleader in the television production "The Lord Don't Play Favorites" on Producers' Showcase in 1956
He was heard on such radio programs as The Story of Swing (1937) and This Is Jazz (1947), and he also made countless television appearances, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, including appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Many
of Armstrong's recordings remain popular. More than four decades since
his death, a larger number of his recordings from all periods of his
career are more widely available than at any time during his lifetime.
His songs are broadcast and listened to every day throughout the world,
and are honored in various movies, TV series, commercials, and even anime and video games. "A Kiss to Build a Dream On" was included in the video game Fallout 2, accompanying the intro cinematic. It was also used in the 1993 film Sleepless in Seattle and the 2005 film Lord of War. "Melancholy Blues," performed by Armstrong and his Hot Seven was included on the Voyager Golden Record
sent into outer space to represent one of the greatest achievements of
humanity. Most familiar to modern listeners is his ubiquitous rendition
of "What a Wonderful World". In 2008, Armstrong's recording of Edith Piaf's famous "La Vie En Rose" was used in a scene of the popular Disney/Pixar film WALL-E. The song was also used in parts, especially the opening trumpets, in the French filmJeux d'enfants (Love Me If You Dare.) Argentine writer Julio Cortázar, a self-described Armstrong admirer, asserted that a 1952 Louis Armstrong concert at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris played a significant role in inspiring him to create the fictional creatures called Cronopios
that are the subject of a number of Cortázar's short stories. Cortázar
once called Armstrong himself "Grandísimo Cronopio" (The Great
Cronopio). Armstrong appears as a minor fictionalized character in Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory Series. When he and his band escape from a Nazi-like
Confederacy, they enhance the insipid mainstream music of the North. A
young Armstrong also appears as a minor fictionalized character in Patrick Neate's 2001 novel Twelve Bar Blues, part of which is set in New Orleans, and which was a winner at that year's Whitbread Book Awards. There is a pivotal scene in Stardust Memories (1980) in which Woody Allen is overwhelmed by a recording of Armstrong's "Stardust" and experiences a nostalgic epiphany.[70]
The combination of the music and the perfect moment is the catalyst for
much of the film's action, prompting the protagonist to fall in love
with an ill-advised woman.[71] Terry Teachout wrote a one-man play about Armstrong called Satchmo at the Waldorf that was premiered in 2011 in Orlando, Fla., and has since been produced by Shakespeare & Company, Long Wharf Theater, and the Wilma Theater. The production ran off Broadway in 2014.
Legacy
Louis Armstrong and Grace Kelly on the set of High Society, 1956
The
influence of Armstrong on the development of jazz is virtually
immeasurable. Yet, his irrepressible personality both as a performer,
and as a public figure later in his career, was so strong that to some
it sometimes overshadowed his contributions as a musician and singer. As a virtuoso trumpet player, Armstrong had a unique tone and an extraordinary talent for melodic improvisation.
Through his playing, the trumpet emerged as a solo instrument in jazz
and is used widely today. He was a masterful accompanist and ensemble
player in addition to his extraordinary skills as a soloist. With his
innovations, he raised the bar musically for all who came after him. Though Armstrong is widely recognized as a pioneer of scat singing, Ethel Waters precedes his scatting on record in the 1930s according to Gary Giddins and others.[77] Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra are just two singers who were greatly indebted to him. Holiday said that she always wanted Bessie Smith's
'big' sound and Armstrong's feeling in her singing. Even special
musicians like Duke Ellington have praised Armstrong through strong
testimonials. Duke Ellington said, "If anybody was a master, it was
Louis Armstrong." In 1950, Bing Crosby,
the most successful vocalist of the first half of the 20th century,
said, "He is the beginning and the end of music in America." In the summer of 2001, in commemoration of the centennial of Armstrong's birth, New Orleans's main airport was renamed Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. In 2002, the Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings (1925–1928) were preserved in the United States National Recording Registry, a registry of recordings selected yearly by the National Recording Preservation Board for preservation in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress.[78] The US Open tennis tournament's former main stadium was named Louis Armstrong Stadium in honor of Armstrong who had lived a few blocks from the site.[79] Today, there are many bands worldwide dedicated to preserving and honoring the music and style of Satchmo, including the Louis Armstrong Society located in New Orleans, Louisiana.
House
The house where Armstrong lived for almost 28 years was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1977 and is now a museum. The Louis Armstrong House Museum,
at 34-56 107th Street (between 34th and 37th Avenues) in Corona,
Queens, presents concerts and educational programs, operates as a
historic house museum and makes materials in its archives of writings,
books, recordings and memorabilia available to the public for research.
The museum is operated by the City University of New York's Queens College, following the dictates of Lucille Armstrong's will. The museum opened to the public on October 15, 2003. A new visitors center is planned.[80] -------------------------------
Duke Ellington, It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)(chap. 36, p. 1179)
Read p. 1179 (in chap. 36) carefully and then read this paragraph. This was composed by Ellington in 1931; it is the song that introduced the term "swing" to the jazz world of the day. Ellington (1899-1974) was born in Washington DC and became famous at Harlem's Cotton Club.
-------------------------------
Camilla Williams, Summertime (from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess) (Gershwin's Porgy and Bess is discussed in chap. 36, p. 1179)
From the Community Audio website athttps://archive.org/details/GershwinPorgyAndBess1951 , one can listen to Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. In Act 1, Scene 1, Camilla Williams (from the 1:20 mark to the 3:30 mark) sings "Summertime".Then listen to more of this great American opera if you wish.
"Summertime" is an aria composed in 1934 by George Gershwin for the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess. The lyrics are by DuBose Heyward, the author of the novel Porgy on which the opera was based, although the song is also co-credited to Ira Gershwin by ASCAP.[1]
The song soon became a popular and much recorded jazz standard, described as "without doubt ... one of the finest songs the composer ever wrote ... Gershwin's highly evocative writing brilliantly mixes elements of jazz and the song styles of blacks in the southeast United States from the early twentieth century".[2] Composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim has characterized Heyward's lyrics for "Summertime" and "My Man's Gone Now" as "the best lyrics in the musical theater".[3] The song is recognized as one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded music, with more than 33,000 covers by groups and solo performers.[4]
There are over 25,000 recordings of "Summertime".[15] In September 1936, a recording by Billie Holiday was the first to hit the US pop charts, reaching no. 12.[7] Other versions to make the pop charts include those by Sam Cooke (US no. 81, 1957), Al Martino (UK no. 49, 1960), The Marcels (US no. 78, 1961), Rick Nelson (US no. 89, 1962), and the Chris Columbo Quintet (US no. 93, 1963).[16][17]
The Zombies released their version in January 1965 on their debut LP The Zombies.
The most commercially successful version was by Billy Stewart, who reached no. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, and no. 7 on the R&B chart in 1966;[18] his version reached no. 39 in the UK[19] and no.13 in Canada. His song featured Maurice White (later of Earth, Wind & Fire) on drums. It spent seven weeks in the Top 40.
Janis Joplin's version with Big Brother and the Holding Company has been highly praised.[20][21] David Starkey in his article "Summertime" says that Joplin sings the song "with the authority of a very old spirit".[22]
This was the first song The Beatles played with Ringo Starr. On October 15, 1960, they recorded at the Akustik Recording Studio, 57 Kirchenallee, Hamburg Germany. The place was an absolute shambles, at the back of a railway station. The main vocalist was Wally Eymond, aka Lou "Wally" Walters, who was guitarist for Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. Beatles drummer Pete Best wasn't there, so Eymond's bandmate Ringo Starr played. This was only a day or so after Stu Sutcliffe was brutally beaten, so he wasn't involved, although it's possible he was in attendance; Johnny Guitar and Ty Brian were also at the recording as observers only. They also recorded "September Song" and "Fever." Nine copies of the record were pressed. "Summertime" was the A side with "Fever" on the B side.
However, The Beatles aka The Beatals - 1960 The Braun Kirchherr Tapes, 1:55:38, the entire bootleg of the session does not include the song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj6doHW0oT8
Paul did record Summertime as a solo artist in 1988.
On September 26, 1937, Smith was critically injured in a car accident while traveling along U.S. Route 61 between Memphis, Tennessee, and Clarksdale, Mississippi. Her lover, Richard Morgan, was driving and misjudged the speed of a slow-moving truck ahead of him. Tire marks at the scene suggested that Morgan tried to avoid the truck by driving around its left side, but he hit the rear of the truck side-on at high speed. The tailgate of the truck sheared off the wooden roof of Smith's old Packard. Smith, who was in the passenger seat, probably with her right arm or elbow out the window, took the full brunt of the impact. Morgan escaped without injuries.
The first people on the scene were a Memphis surgeon, Dr. Hugh Smith (no relation), and his fishing partner, Henry Broughton. In the early 1970s, Hugh Smith gave a detailed account of his experience to Bessie's biographer Chris Albertson. This is the most reliable eyewitness testimony about the events surrounding her death.
After stopping at the accident scene, Hugh Smith examined the singer, who was lying in the middle of the road with obviously severe injuries. He estimated she had lost about a half pint of blood and immediately noted a major traumatic injury to her right arm; it had been almost completely severed at the elbow.[15] Hugh Smith was emphatic that this arm injury alone did not cause her death. Although the light was poor, he observed only minor head injuries. He attributed her death to extensive and severe crush injuries to the entire right side of her body, consistent with a sideswipe collision.[16]
Broughton and Hugh Smith moved the singer to the shoulder of the road. Dr. Smith dressed her arm injury with a clean handkerchief and asked Broughton to go to a house about 500 feet off the road to call an ambulance.
By the time Broughton returned approximately 25 minutes later, Bessie Smith was in shock. Time passed with no sign of the ambulance, so Hugh Smith suggested that they take her into Clarksdale in his car. He and Broughton had almost finished clearing the back seat when they heard the sound of a car approaching at high speed. Smith flashed his lights in warning, but the oncoming car failed to stop and plowed into his car at full speed. It sent his car careening into Bessie Smith's overturned Packard, completely wrecking it. The oncoming car ricocheted off Hugh Smith's car into the ditch on the right, barely missing Broughton and Bessie Smith.[17]
The young couple in the new car did not have life-threatening injuries. Two ambulances arrived on the scene from Clarksdale; one from the black hospital, summoned by Broughton, the other from the white hospital, acting on a report from the truck driver, who had not seen the accident victims.
Bessie Smith was taken to Clarksdale's G. T. Thomas Afro-American Hospital, where her right arm was amputated. She died that morning without regaining consciousness. After her death, an often repeated but now discredited story emerged that she had died as a result of having been refused admission to a whites-only hospital in Clarksdale. The jazz writer and producer John Hammond gave this account in an article in the November 1937 issue of Down Beat magazine. The circumstances of Smith's death and the rumor promoted by Hammond formed the basis for Edward Albee's 1959 one-act play The Death of Bessie Smith.[18]
Smith's funeral was held in Philadelphia a little over a week later on October 4, 1937. Her body was originally laid out at Upshur's funeral home. As word of her death spread through Philadelphia's black community, the body had to be moved to the O.V. Catto Elks Lodge to accommodate the estimated 10,000 mourners who filed past her coffin on Sunday, October 3.[20] Contemporary newspapers reported that her funeral was attended by about seven thousand people. Far fewer mourners attended the burial at Mount Lawn Cemetery, in nearby Sharon Hill. Jack Gee thwarted all efforts to purchase a stone for his estranged wife, once or twice pocketing money raised for that purpose.[21]
Bessie began her recording career in 1923,[6] when Smith had taken up residence in Philadelphia. There she met and fell in love with Gee, a security guard, whom she married on June 7, 1923, just as her first record was released. During the marriage—a stormy one, with infidelity on both sides—Smith became the highest-paid black entertainer of the day, heading her own shows, which sometimes featured as many as 40 troupers, and touring in her own custom-built railroad car.
Finally, on August 7, 1970, a tombstone—paid for by both Joplin and Juanita Green, who as a child had done housework for Bessie Smith—was erected at Smith's previously unmarked grave. On August 8 Janis performed at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York. It was there that she first performed "Mercedes Benz", a song she wrote that day in the bar next door.[53] The song went on to be her biggest hit.
On Sunday, October 4, 1970, producer Paul Rothchild became concerned when Joplin failed to show up at Sunset Sound Recorders for a recording session. Full Tilt Boogie's road manager, John Cooke, drove to the Landmark Motor Hotel in Hollywood where Joplin was staying. He saw Joplin's psychedelically painted Porsche 356C Cabriolet in the parking lot. Upon entering Joplin's room (#105), he found her dead on the floor beside her bed. The official cause of death was an overdose of heroin, possibly compounded by alcohol.[18][61] Cooke believes that Joplin had accidentally been given heroin that was much more potent than normal, as several of her dealer's other customers also overdosed that week.[62] She was cremated.[63]
Peggy Caserta and Seth Morgan had both failed to meet Joplin the Friday immediately prior to her death, October 2. She had been expecting both of them to keep her company that night.[17] According to the book Going Down With Janis, Joplin was saddened that neither of her friends visited her at the Landmark Motor Hotel as they had promised.[15][17] During the 24 hours Joplin lived after this disappointment, Caserta did not phone her to explain why she had failed to show up.[17] Caserta admitted to waiting until late Saturday night to dial the Landmark switchboard, only to learn that Joplin had instructed the desk clerk to get rid of all her incoming phone callers after midnight.[17] Morgan did speak to Joplin on the telephone within 24 hours of her death, but it is not known whether he admitted to her that he had broken his promise.[15]
Joplin's will funded $2,500 to throw a wake party in the event of her demise. The party, which took place October 26, 1970, at the Lion's Share in San Anselmo, California, was attended by Joplin's sister Laura, fiancé Seth Morgan, and close friends, including tattoo artist Lyle Tuttle, Bob Gordon, Jack Penty, and road manager Cooke.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guKoNCQFAFk
Week 8 Explore
Streaming Live
Chapter 35 (pp. 1163-1166); Chapter 36 (p. 1189), stream of consciousness – background and samples
World War I (WWI or WW1), also known as the First World War, or the Great War, was a global war originating in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history.[5][6] Over 9 million combatants and 7 million civiliansdied as a result of the war (including the victims of a number of genocides), a casualty rate exacerbated by the belligerents' technological and industrial sophistication, and the tactical stalemate caused by trench warfare, a grueling form of warfare in which the defender held the advantage. It was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved.[7]
On 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia and subsequently invaded.[12][13] As Russia mobilised in support of Serbia, Germany invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg
before moving towards France, leading the United Kingdom to declare war
on Germany. After the German march on Paris was halted, what became
known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that would change little until 1917. Meanwhile, on the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, but was stopped in its invasion of East Prussia by the Germans. In November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. Italy joined the Allies in 1915 and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers in the same year, while Romania joined the Allies in 1916, followed by the United States in 1917.
The Russian government collapsed in March 1917, and a subsequent revolution in November brought the Russians to terms with the Central Powers via the Treaty of Brest Litovsk,
which constituted a massive German victory. After a stunning German
offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies
rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives.
On 4 November 1918, the Austro-Hungarian empire agreed to an armistice, and Germany, which had its own trouble with revolutionaries, agreed to an armistice on 11 November 1918, ending the war in victory for the Allies.
By the end of the war, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire
and the Ottoman Empire had ceased to exist. National borders were
redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and
Germany's colonies were parceled out among the winners. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four (Britain, France, the United States and Italy) imposed their terms in a series of treaties. The League of Nations
was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a
conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed European
nationalism, weakened member states, and the German feeling of
humiliation contributed to the rise of Nazism. These conditions eventually contributed to World War II
In
1966, the "Ace" was immortalized in song by the Royal Guardsmen with
their hit, Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron. This was followed in 1967 by Return
of the Red Baron, in which it is revealed that the Baron survived their
previous encounter but runs away when Snoopy challenges him to a duel
with pistols, and then by Snoopy's Christmas, in which the two foes
temporarily set aside their differences for a Christmas toast, as per
the Christmas Truces that occurred during World War I. Snoopy's
Christmas continues to be played as a holiday favorite on many oldies
radio stations.
During the 1968 U.S. Presidential election, the
Guardsmen released two additional songs, "Snoopy for President", in
which Snoopy's bid for the nomination of the Beagle party is tipped in
his favor by the Red Baron, and "Down Behind the Lines", which does not
mention Snoopy specifically but describes the attempts of a World War I
pilot to fly his damaged Sopwith Camel back to friendly territory.
In
2006 the Guardsmen recorded a song called "Snoopy vs. Osama" in which
Snoopy shifts his focus away from The Red Baron and captures Osama Bin
Laden.
The group from Ocala, FL with the British moniker rose to fame in
1966 with its single, “Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron,” which became the title
track of its debut album. The album reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot
100 Chart and remained there for 12 weeks. It went on to sell one
million copies, earning it gold certification from the R.I.A.A. in 1967.
https://youtu.be/Oxzg_iM-T4E
Task
The date is July 30, 1914 and the situation is critical when you
receive the telegram. You are a diplomat for one of the countries
involved in the origins of World War I. Austria-Hungary has already
declared war on Serbia after receiving reassurance of full support from
Germany. Because of the alliance system, this war is not destined to
remain a small, regional flare up. Russia and Germany are about to
declare war because the Russian army has been mobilized at the German
border. Germany has plans to attack France through neutral Belgium, and
Great Britain has sworn to protect Belgium's neutrality. Belgium is
trying to make one last effort to bring the interested countries
together to avoid war.
The Process
Step1: Your team is a diplomatic advisory group representing one of the following:
1) Austro-Hungarian Empire
2) Germany
3) France
4) Great Britain
5) Russia
6) Italy, and
7) the Ottoman Empire.
Each country's team of diplomats will meet in neutral Belgium on July
31, 1914. In order to prepare for the peace conference, you and your
team must research and make an oral presentation with visuals on the
following topics as stated in the telegram:
* Background about your country including: a brief history, geographic location, alliances, and leaders
* Long term reasons explaining why your country is willing to risk going to war (events more than a year ago)
* Short term reasons explaining why your country is willing to risk going to war (events within the last year)
All students should take notes on these three topics: background, long term reasons, and short term reasons.
Step
2: After your group has made a presentation representing your country's
point of view on these topics and studied the information given by the
other countries, you will prepare and present a proposal to prevent the
war. Take into account all that you have learned from the presentations
of other countries, and try to formulate an agreement that will prevent
the war by presenting a valid compromise. This proposal should obtain
for your country what it really wants and make some concessions to other
countries
Step 3: After your country has presented its
peace proposal, the class will divide up into 4 groups with at least one
representative from each country in each group. In these new peace
negotiation groups, start by voting on the proposals from each country.
Because some countries are more powerful than others, some countries
will receive more votes: Germany (3), Great Britain (3), France (2),
Russia (2), Serbia (1), Ottoman Empire (1), Austro-Hungarian Empire (2),
Italy (1). Any country may abstain from voting. Modify the proposal
with the most votes until you reach a consensus. If you do not reach a
consensus within the class session, you will write out a declaration of
war stating the reasons why you are going to war.
Resources
Read the information that your textbook gives about the beginning of
World War I. You should also read the following background information
first:
Assassination in Sarajevo (http://www.worldwar1.com/tlsara.htm)
1879-1914: The Deadly Alliances (http://www.worldwar1.com/tlalli.htm)
The July Crisis (http://www.worldwar1.com/tlplot.htm)
Germany
Look for the answers to these questions:
* Who are your allies?
* Why does Germany support the Austro-Hungarian Empire?
* What are Germany's colonial interests?
* What are Germany's military interests, and how is Germany building up its military?
* Why is Germany an economic rival of Great Britain?
* How does Germany's competition to build up its navy put them into an arms race with
* Great Britain?
* What is the "Blank Check" that Germany gives the Austro-Hungarian Empire?
The documents below will help you:
Trenches on the Web, the War Atlas-Germany
http://www.worldwar1.com/atger.htm
May, 1882 - The Triple Alliance
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/tripally.html
The Daily Telegraph Affair 28 October, 1908
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/dailytel.html
1914 The German White Book
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/germbook.html
June-July, 1914 German Dispatches and the Kaiser's Notes
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/wilnotes.html
Autograph Letter of Franz Joseph to the Kaiser, Vienna, 2 July, 1914
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/frzwilly.html
29 July-1 August, 1914 The "Willy-Nicky" Telegrams in the original English
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/willynilly.html
July, 1914 Prince Lichownowsky's Reply to Sir Edward Grey
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/lichno.html
Kaiser Wilhelm II's Account of Events, July, 1914. From his Memoirs
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/kwiijuly.html
France
* Look for the answers to these questions:
* Who are your allies?
* What area did France have to give to Germany after the Franco-Prussian War?
* How does France plan to defend itself against Germany?
* What problem does France have with Germany in Morocco, a colony of France?
* How did France win Russia over as an ally from Germany?
The documents below will help you:
Trenches on the Web, the War Atlas-France
http://www.worldwar1.com/atfra.htm
18 August, 1892 The Franco-Russian Alliance Military Convention
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/franruss.html
My Mission to London, 1912-14 by Prince Lichnowsky
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/lichnowy.html
Great Britain
* Look for the answers to these questions:
* Who are Britain's allies?
* How does Germany's increase in battleships (Dreadnoughts) affect Britain?
* How does the industrial rivalry affect Britain's relationship with Germany?
* What treaty does Britain have to protect Belgium's neutrality?
* What imperial rivalries does Britain have with Germany in Africa?
* What are Britain's interests in the Middle East, and how does this conflict with the Ottoman Empire?
The documents below will help you:
Trenches on the Web, the War Atlas-Great Britain
http://www.worldwar1.com/ateng.htm
8-12 February, 1912 - The Haldane Mission
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/haldane.html
28 October, 1908 - The Daily Telegraph Affair
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/dailytel.html
British Imperial Connexions to the Arab Nationalist
Movement, Lord Kitchener and the Arab National Movement, 1912-1914
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/arabetuk.html
My Mission to London, 1912-14 by Prince Lichnowsky
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/lichnowy.html
31 July, 1914 Sir Edward Grey's Indecisiveness
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/greyegal.html
July, 1914 Prince Lichownowsky's Reply to Sir Edward Grey
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/lichno.html
Russia
Look for the answers to these questions:
* Who are Russia's allies?
* Why is access to the Dardanelles from the Black Sea important to Russia?
* Why is Russia allied with Serbia?
* How did Germany lose Russia as an ally and how does this affect the German war plans?
* Why is it necessary for Russia to mobilize its army so much in advance and how does Germany react?
The documents below will help you:
Trenches on the Web, the War Atlas-Russia
http://www.worldwar1.com/atrus.htm
October, 1909 - The Racconigi Bargain
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/racco.html
18 August, 1892 - The Franco-Russian Alliance Military Convention
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/franruss.html
1907 - The Anglo-Russian Entente
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/anglruss.html
1914 - The German White Book
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/germbook.html
British Imperial Connexions to the Arab Nationalist
Movement, Lord Kitchener and the Arab National Movement, 1912-1914
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/arabetuk.html
My Mission to London, 1912-14 by Prince Lichnowsky
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/lichnowy.html
28 July, 1914: The Pledge Plan
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/pledplan.html
29 July-1 August, 1914 - The "Willy-Nicky" Telegrams in the original English
http://www.lib.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/willynilly.html
July, 1914 Prince Lichownowsky's Reply to Sir Edward Grey
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/lichno.html
Austro-Hungarian Empire
Look for the answers to these questions:
* What countries is the Austro-Hungarian Empire allied with?
* What problems does the Austro-Hungarian Empire face?
* How is nationalism affecting the Austro-Hungarian Empire?
* What are the Austro-Hungarian Empireís goals in the Balkans?
* What happened in Sarajevo to bring events to a crisis and what did the Austro-Hungarian
* Empire demand of Serbia?
* Would the Austro-Hungarian Empire go to war without the help of Germany?
* How does the Austro-Hungarian Empire force Serbia into a war?
The documents below will help you:
Trenches on the Web, War Atlas Austria
http://www.worldwar1.com/athng.htm
20 May, 1882 The Triple Alliance
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/tripally.html
5 December, 1912 Expanded Version of the Triple Alliance
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/tripall2.html
September-October, 1908 The Annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/bosherz.html
6 July, 1914 - The 'Blank Check'
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/blankche.html
British Imperial Connexions to the Arab Nationalist
Movement, Lord Kitchener and the Arab National Movement, 1912-1914
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/arabetuk.html
My Mission to London, 1912-14 by Prince Lichnowsky
http://www.lib.byu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/lichnowy.html
23 July, 1914: The Austro-Hungarian Ultimatum to Serbia
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/austro-hungarian-ultimatum.html
25 July, 1914: The Serbian Response to the Austro-Hungarian Ultimatum
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/serbresponse.html
28 July, 1914: The Pledge Plan
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/pledplan.html
July 1914, Prince Lichownowsky's Reply to Sir Edward Grey
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/lichno.html
Serbia (Everyone should review this material in addition to your assigned country)
Look for the answers to these questions:
* Who are Serbia's allies?
* Why does Serbia object to the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina to Austria?
* What are the goals of the Serbian nationalist organizations?
* What is Pan-Slavism and what are its goals?
* What is Serbia's response to the ultimatum sent by the Austro-Hungarian Empire?
The documents below will help you:
Trenches on the Web, the War Atlas-Serbia
http://www.worldwar1.com/atserb.htm
September-October, 1908 The Annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/bosherz.html
1911 The Narodna Odbrana
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/odbrana.html
The Constitution of the Black Hand, 1911
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/blk-cons.html
British Imperial Connexions to the Arab Nationalist
Movement, Lord Kitchener and the Arab National Movement, 1912-1914
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/arabetuk.html
My Mission to London, 1912-14 by Prince Lichnowsky
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/lichnowy.html
23 July, 1914: The Austro-Hungarian Ultimatum to Serbia
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/austro-hungarian-ultimatum.html
25 July, 1914 - The Serbian Response to the Austro-Hungarian Ultimatum
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/serbresponse.html
July 1914 - Prince Lichownowsky's Reply to Sir Edward Grey
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/lichno.html
Italy
Look for the answers to these questions:
* Who are Italy's allies?
* Under what conditions will Italy go to war to aid its allies? Is the Triple Alliance an offensive or defensive alliance?
* What territorial and colonial interests does Italy have in Europe,
and Africa and how might their decision to declare war be affected by
this?
* In what ways is your ally in the Triple Alliance, Austria, also your rival?
The documents below will help you:
20 May, 1882 The Triple Alliance
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/tripally.html
1914 - The Austro-Italian Naval Race
http://www.worldwar1.com/tlainr.htm
October, 1909 - The Racconigi Bargain
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/racco.html
5 December, 1912 Expanded Version of the Triple Alliance
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/tripall2.html
My Mission to London, 1912-14 by Prince Lichnowsky
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/lichnowy.html
Ottoman Empire
Look for the answers to these questions:
What is Ottoman Empire's relationship with Bosnia and other countries in the Balkans?
What strategic strait does Turkey control and why is it strategic?
What relationship does Turkey have with Great Britain in the Middle East?
The documents below will help you:
Trenches on the Web, the War Atlas-The Ottoman Empire
http://www.worldwar1.com/attur.htm
September-October, 1908 The Annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/bosherz.html
British Imperial Connexions to the Arab Nationalist
Movement, Lord Kitchener and the Arab National Movement, 1912-1914
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/arabetuk.html
My Mission to London, 1912-14 by Prince Lichnowsky
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/lichnowy.html
Preview WW I
The Twentieth-Century Crisis 1914-1945
"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."
Winston Churchill
Americans engaged in trench warfare during World War I.
War and Revolution 1914-1919
Map of Europe
An assassination in the Balkans sparked the outbreak of World War I.
Millions died during the war, which also led to a revolution and
Communist rule in Russia. The war settlements redrew the map of Europe
and imposed heavy penalties on Germany.
Military forces marched off to fight with stirring music such as the
United Forces March.
Yet, troops did not anticipate the carnage that they actually
experienced on the battle field; this was not combat that they had
learned about in school where brave, courageous young men went out to
the battlefield to prove themselves.
Canadian John McCrae
served as a military doctor on the Western Front in World War I. In
1915, McCrae wrote the following poem in the voice of those he had
watched die.
“In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.”
—Dr. John McCrae, 1915
You can hear about McCrae’s experience during World War I.
The Battle of the Somme, 3:35
An Allied offensive at the Somme River (sum) was extremely costly. In
a single grisly day, nearly 60,000 British soldiers were killed or
wounded. In the five-month battle, more than one million soldiers were
killed, without either side winning an advantage. Europe was to
experience a new kind of war.
Features real footage from the
Somme, including quotes and figures. Voted as one of the TEN BEST War
Videos on WeShow Awards, 3:35.
In-class assignment, with a partner, answer the questions.
1. How many British troops were killed on the first day?
2. At the conclusion of the battle how many casualties were there?
Animated battle of the Somme
Cf. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/launch_ani_somme_map.shtml
Audio: Chapter 16 Section 1 The Road to World War I
Competition over trade and colonies led to the formation of two rival
European alliances—the Triple Entente of Great Britain, France, and
Russia; and the Triple Alliance, consisting of Germany, Austria-Hungary,
and Italy. Repeated crises over Serbian claims on the Austro-Hungarian
region of Bosnia revealed the dangers inherent in these alliances.
Austria-Hungary, as well as numerous other European governments,
confronted challenges from minorities that wished to establish their own
national states. Strikes and violent actions by Socialist labor
movements also threatened European governments. Many states responded
with increasing militarism. The assassination of the heir to the throne
of Austria-Hungary by a Bosnian Serb militant set off a chain of
diplomatic and military decisions that led all of the great powers of
Europe into World War I.
Key Terms
conscription
mobilization
Note Taking Reading Skill: Summarize As you read, use a chart to
summarize the events that led up to the outbreak of World War I.
In-class assignment: with a partner, answer the questions.
This is a map for World War I: 1914-1918 Map, 6:41
Cf. http://ant.umn.edu/vav.php?pid=62159449393845
View the embedded player with the animated map content
WW I Map
1. Where did the spark occur?
2. Who was assassinated?
3. What were the two sides that formed?
4. What was the first country to mobilize?
5. In what year did the U.S. join the conflict?
6. Where did the Germans meet the Russians in the East?
7. In what month and year did the front line in the West stabilize?
8. In an attempt to knock Turkey out of the war where did the Allies attack?
9. Where did the Germans counterattack?
10. What was the one major naval battle of the war?
11. What British officer gained world wide fame in the Middle East?
12. What setback did the Allies suffer in 1917? The Western Front and the Eastern Front, 1914–1918
For: Interactive map
Visit: PHSchool.com
Web Code: nap-2621
Map Skills
World War I was fought on several fronts in Europe. Despite huge loss
of life and property, the two sides came to a stalemate on the Western
and Eastern fronts in 1915 and 1916.
1. Locate
(a) Paris (b) Battle of the Marne (c) Verdun (d) Tannenberg
2. Movement
Using the scale, describe how the battle lines moved on the Western Front from 1914 to 1918.
3. Draw Inferences
Based on this map, why do you think many Russians were demoralized by the progress of the war?
The Human Cost To break the stalemate on the Western Front, both the
Allies and the Central Powers launched massive offensives in 1916.
German forces tried to overwhelm the French at Verdun (vur dun). The
French defenders held firm, sending up the battle cry “They shall not
pass.” The 11-month struggle cost more than a half a million casualties,
or soldiers killed, wounded, or missing, on both sides.
Nationalism and the System of Alliances
Internal Dissent
Militarism
The Outbreak of War: Summer 1914
The Serbian Problem
A crisis began when Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary
announced that he would visit Sarajevo (sa ruh yay voh), the capital of
Bosnia. Francis Ferdinand was the nephew and heir of the aging Austrian
emperor, Francis Joseph. At the time of his visit, Bosnia was under the
rule of Austria-Hungary. But it was also the home of many Serbs and
other Slavs. News of the royal visit angered many Serbian nationalists.
They viewed the Austrians as foreign oppressors. Some members of Unity
or Death, a Serbian terrorist group commonly known as the Black Hand,
vowed to take action.
Assassination in Sarajevo
The assassin, Gavrilo Princip. Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife Sophie
The spark for World War I was the assassination of Archduke
Ferdinand. On June 28, 1914, Gavrilo Princip (gav ree loh preen tseep), a
member of a Serbian terrorist group, killed Austrian Archduke Francis
Ferdinand and his wife Sophie.
The archduke ignored warnings
of anti-Austrian unrest in Sarajevo. On June 28, 1914, he and his wife,
Sophie, rode through Sarajevo in an open car. As the car passed by, a
conspirator named Gavrilo Princip (gav ree loh preen tseep) seized his
chance and fired twice into the car. Moments later, the archduke and his
wife were dead.
“The first [bullet] struck the wife of the Archduke, the Archduchess Sofia, in the abdomen. . . . She died instantly.
The second bullet struck the Archduke close to the heart. He uttered
only one word, ’Sofia’—a call to his stricken wife. Then his head fell
back and he collapsed. He died almost instantly.”
—Borijove Jevtic, co-conspirator
The assassinations triggered World War I, called “The Great War” by people at the time.
Austria-Hungary Responds
The news of the assassination shocked Francis Joseph. Still, he was
reluctant to go to war. The government in Vienna, however, saw the
incident as an excuse to crush Serbia. In Berlin, Kaiser William II was
horrified at the assassination of his ally’s heir. He wrote to Francis
Joseph, advising him to take a firm stand toward Serbia. Instead of
urging restraint, Germany gave Austria a “blank check,” or a promise of
unconditional support no matter what the cost.
Austria sent
Serbia a sweeping ultimatum, or final set of demands. To avoid war, said
the ultimatum, Serbia must end all anti-Austrian agitation and punish
any Serbian official involved in the murder plot. It must even let
Austria join in the investigation. Serbia agreed to most, but not all,
of the terms of Austria’s ultimatum. This partial refusal gave Austria
the opportunity it was seeking. On July 28, 1914, Austria declared war
on Serbia.
Russia Mobilizes
After Austria’s
declaration of war, Serbia turned to its ally, Russia, the champion of
Slavic nations. From St. Petersburg, Nicholas II telegraphed William II.
The tsar asked the kaiser to urge Austria to soften its demands. When
this plea failed, Russia began to mobilize, or prepare its military
forces for war. On August 1, Germany responded by declaring war on
Russia.
Russia, in turn, appealed to its ally France. In
Paris, nationalists saw a chance to avenge France’s defeat in the
Franco-Prussian War. Though French leaders had some doubts, they gave
Russia the same kind of backing Germany offered to Austria. When Germany
demanded that France keep out of the conflict, France refused. Germany
then declared war on France.
The Conflict Broadens
Summary of the Conflict Broadening
The Germans’ Schlieffen (shlee fun) Plan failed for several reasons.
First, Russia mobilized more quickly than expected. After a few small
Russian victories, German generals hastily shifted some troops to the
east, weakening their forces in the west. Then, in September 1914,
British and French troops pushed back the German drive along the Marne
River. The first battle of the Marne ended Germany’s hopes for a quick
victory on the Western Front.
Reasons for the failure of the
Schlieffen Plan: Belgium, Britain, and the Eastern Front. The video
ends at the Battle of the Marne, 3:49.
In-class assignment, with a partner, answer the question.
Reading Check
Evaluating
What was the Schlieffen Plan and how did it complicate the events leading to World War I?
On
"Big Bertha" (noted in the video), named after the daughter of the
famous German gun manufacturer, Krupp, a word can be added. Although the
super-heavy artillery was fearsome, and Parisian civilians were killed,
the howitzer proved largely ineffective and played a smaller role in
the Schlieffen advance than the Germans had hoped The Encyclopedia of Weaponry: The Development of Weaponry from Prehistory to 21st Century Warfare, Ian V. Hogg, p. 123.
Graphic source: Wikipedia Commons
The War
Most people in 1914 believed that the war would end quickly. The
picture changed, though, as trench warfare between France and Germany
turned into a stalemate and casualties mounted throughout Europe. Italy
switched sides, and the Ottoman Empire joined the war on the side of the
Triple Alliance. The war broadened further when German colonies came
under attack and the British encouraged Ottoman provinces in the Middle
East to revolt. The United States entered the war in 1917 in response to
the German use of submarines against passenger ships. As the war
dragged on, governments took control of national economies, censored the
news media, and used propaganda to bolster public opinion. Women
entered the workforce in large numbers. After the war, many lost their
jobs to men but gained expanded rights and status. By 1921 women had the
vote in Austria, Germany, Great Britain, and the United States.
Key Terms
propaganda
trench warfare
war of attrition
total war
planned economies
1914 to 1915: Illusions and Stalemate
Propaganda of World War I, 2:35
These are some recruitment and propaganda posters from England and
France during World War I. The song: "Boys in Khaki, Boys in Blue,"
means British and French soldiers.
WW 1 PROPAGANDA POSTERS(UK), 5:32
Each
of the nations which participated in World War One from 1914-18 used
propaganda posters not only as a means of justifying involvement to
their own populace, but also as a means of procuring men, money and
resources to sustain the military campaign.
In countries
such as Britain the use of propaganda posters was readily
understandable: in 1914 she only possessed a professional army and did
not have in place a policy of national service, as was standard in other
major nations such as France and Germany.
The Western Front
Cf. http://www.phschool.com/webcodes10/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.gotoWebCode&wcprefix=nap&wcsuffix=2621
American Battle Monuments Cemetery in Aisne Marne, France, 2:00
This video presents a brief narrated tour of Aisne-Marne American Cemetery's landscaped grounds, architecture, and works of art.
The 42.5-acre Aisne-Marne Cemetery and Memorial in France, its
headstones lying in a sweeping curve, sits at the foot of the hill where
stands Belleau Wood. The cemetery contains the graves of 2,289 war
dead, most of whom fought in the vicinity and in the Marne valley in the
summer of 1918. The memorial chapel sits on a hillside, decorated with
sculptured and stained-glass details of wartime personnel, equipment and
insignia. Inscribed on its interior wall are 1,060 names of the
missing. Rosettes mark the names of those since recovered and
identified. During World War II, the chapel was damaged slightly by an
enemy shell.
Belleau Wood adjoins the cemetery and contains
many vestiges of World War I. A monument at the flagpole commemorates
the valor of the U.S. Marines who captured much of this ground in 1918.
The Eastern Front
On Europe’s Eastern Front, battle lines shifted back and forth,
sometimes over large areas. Even though the armies were not mired in
trench warfare, casualties rose even higher than on the Western Front.
The results were just as indecisive.
In August 1914, Russian
armies pushed into eastern Germany. Then, the Russians suffered a
disastrous defeat at Tannenberg, causing them to retreat back into
Russia. As the least industrialized of the great powers, Russia was
poorly equipped to fight a modern war. Some troops even lacked rifles.
Still, Russian commanders continued to send masses of soldiers into
combat.
In the first scene, Paul Baumer (Richard Thomas) is chastised by his
teacher (Donald Pleasence) for lack of attention in class, (specifically
for furtively making a sketch of a small bird). He is ridiculed as an
'idealist' and a 'dreamer.'
In the final trench scene, Paul
sympathetically chivvies his exhausted soldiers into staying alert for
their own safety. Yet moments later he himself becomes (fatally)
distracted by a small bird, the same symbol of beauty that had so
irritated his mentor three years previously. Other ironic subtleties
reveal themselves here. Paul now seeks solace in smoking, a habit he had
until now totally despised. (Recall how he had haughtily rejected his
teacher's proffering of a cigarette!). Even this actor's distinctive
facial mole acquires significance. Devoid of any disguising make-up, it
disturbs as an appalling disfigurement on an otherwise handsome face, a
subtle symbol perhaps of the Great War's brutal despoiling of a whole
generation of Europe's 'Golden Youth'. Most tellingly, the movie links
the image of Paul's drawings as the metaphor for the idealism of the new
generation, a hope that died with Paul in the mud of those hellish
trenches.
If you enjoyed this excerpt, you may enjoy the entire film.
The horror of war during the great slaughter of World War I is
illustrated by one of the most famous novels from the Great War; this is
a film version of "All Quiet on the Western Front" (1979), 6:01.
A worksheet is available to:
First part of a short film describing various aspects of trench
warfare. Presented by Oxford University's First World War Poetry Digital
Archive project.
This is a brief demo Eagle Films created for a War museum concerning
the brutal and bloody WW-I battle of Verdun. It was one of about twenty
multimedia projects that were to be produced under the supervision of
Philip Cook of Eagle Films.
War in the Air
Interrupter gear, invented by the Frenchman Roland Garros but later perfected with deadly accuracy by Germany.
Diagram of German machine gun synchronisation gear.
To fire the gun,
1. The gun's crank is worked twice, once to load, once to cock.
2. The green handle is pulled
3. which lowers the red cam follower onto the cam wheel.
4. When the cam raises the follower, the blue rod is pushed against the spring.
5. When the pilot presses the purple firing button, inside the breech block the cable lowers the blue bridge piece
6. so that when the blue rod is activated by the cam, the yellow trigger bar is pushed
7. and the gun fires.
Graphic source: Wikipedia Commons
During
World War I, advances in technology, such as the gasoline-powered
engine, led the opposing forces to use tanks, airplanes, and submarines
against each other. In 1916, Britain introduced the first armored tank.
Mounted with machine guns, the tanks were designed to move across no
man’s land. Still, the first tanks broke down often. They failed to
break the stalemate.
Both sides also used aircraft. At
first, planes were utilized simply to observe enemy troop movements. In
1915, Germany used zeppelins (zep uh linz), large gas-filled balloons,
to bomb the English coast. Later, both sides equipped airplanes with
machine guns. Pilots known as “flying aces” confronted each other in the
skies. These “dogfights” were spectacular, but had little effect on the
course of the war on the ground.
Captain Albert Ball before his death at 20 years of age.
Graphic source: Wikipedia Commons
Albert Ball, 1:40
The young Englishman's early career is profiled. Paying for his own
lessons, Ball learns to fly and is approved for service in the Royal
Flying Corps.
The Battle of The Somme begins and the early career of Albert Ball is profiled, 5:16
Albert Ball (14 August 1896 – 7 May 1917) was an English First World
War fighter pilot and recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest
decoration for gallantry "in the face of the enemy" that can be awarded
to members of the British or Commonwealth armed forces. At the time of
his death, he was twenty years old and he was the leading Allied ace
with 44 victories, second only to German ace Manfred Von Richthofen. By
the end of the war he was the United Kingdom's fourth top scoring ace.
Richthofen - A German Legend - The Red Baron, 1:46
Richthofen - The Red Baron
A German Legend
Footage & Soundtrack:
Der Rote Baron (Germany 2008)
Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (2 May 1892 - 21 April 1918)
was a German fighter pilot known as the "Red Baron". He was the most
successful flying ace during World War I, being officially credited with
80 confirmed air combat victories. He served in the Imperial German
Army Air Service (Luftstreitkräfte). Richthofen was a member of an
aristocratic family with many famous relatives.
Freiherr
(literally "Free Lord") is not a given name but a German aristocratic
title, equivalent to a baron in other countries and the origin of
Richthofen's most famous nickname: "The Red Baron". Red was the colour
of his plane. The German translation of The Red Baron is About this
sound "Der Rote Baron" . Richthofen is today known by this nickname even
in Germany, although during his lifetime he was more often described in
German as Der Rote Kampfflieger, (variously translated as the The Red
Battle Flyer or The Red Fighter Pilot). This name was used as the title
of Richthofen's 1917 "autobiography."
Richthofen's other nicknames
include "Le Diable Rouge" ("Red Devil") or "Le Petit Rouge" ("Little
Red") in French, and the "Red Knight" in English.
World War 1 Aircraft - Sopwith Camel F.1, 1:16
The Sopwith Camel is probably one of the most famous British fighters
of the war, in addition to the SE5a simply because it was one of their
first superior fighters of the war. The Camel was dreaded by most
Entente pilots, however. It was fast and maneuverable, but the upper
wing had numerous problems and tendencies to shear off entirely and
plunge the airframe into the ground (and this caused the death of many
pilots), and torque was so great to the left side of the plane that it
was sometimes rendered unable to fly altogether. It was dangerous for
both novice and seasoned pilots to fly, any many died trying to tame the
beast.
Why were military leaders baffled by trench warfare?
Widening of the War
Though most of the fighting took place in Europe, World War I was a
global conflict. Japan, allied with Britain, used the war as an excuse
to seize German outposts in China and islands in the Pacific.
Gallipoli
Because of its strategic location, the Ottoman empire was a desirable
ally. If the Ottoman Turks had joined the Allies, the Central Powers
would have been almost completely encircled. However, the Turks joined
the Central Powers in late October 1914. The Turks then cut off crucial
Allied supply lines to Russia through the Dardanelles, a vital strait
connecting the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.
In 1915, the
Allies sent a massive force of British, Indian, Australian, and New
Zealander troops to attempt to open up the strait. At the battle of
Gallipoli (guh lip uh lee), Turkish troops trapped the Allies on the
beaches of the Gallipoli peninsula. In January 1916, after 10 months and
more than 200,000 casualties, the Allies finally withdrew from the
Dardanelles.
Gallipoli trailer (Mel Gibson), 1:44
Lawrence of Arabia
Gene Siskel & Roger Ebert discuss the 1962 Oscar-winning First World War film Lawrence of Arabia, 4:45.
The Turks were harmed severely in the Middle East. The Ottoman empire
included vast areas of Arab land. In 1916, Arab nationalists led by
Husayn ibn Ali (hoo sayn ib un ah lee) declared a revolt against Ottoman
rule. The British government sent Colonel T. E. Lawrence—later known as
Lawrence of Arabia—to support the Arab revolt. Lawrence led guerrilla
raids against the Turks, dynamiting bridges and supply trains.
Eventually, the Ottoman empire lost a great deal of territory to the
Arabs, including the key city of Baghdad. Entry of the United States
Cf. http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/activities/songs/
In-class assignment, with a partner, answer the question.
Reading Check
Evaluating
Why did the Germans resort to unrestricted submarine use?
The broad impact of the Industrial Revolution resulted in both gains
and losses. There was more food, medicine, clothing, more of everything,
yet, the new technologies extinguished "life as effectively as they
could be used to support it" (Boot, p. 198).
The Industrial
Revolution did not cause WW I yet indirectly it "fostered the rise of
Germany" (Boot, p. 198). "The figures boggle the mind:
from 1914 to 1918, sixty three million were seriously wounded or disabled.
Millions of civilians also died. . . . they were many orders of
magnitude greater than those of any previous conflict. Pre-industrial
states could not possibly have fed, clothed, equipped, moved--or
slaughtered--so many individuals. Germany and France had 20 percent of
their populations under arms. Britain mobilized only 13 percent, but
this was still far higher than the 7 percent that Napoleon had been able
to marshal with the levee en masse" (Boot, p. 198). Each soldier in addition had far more firepower than an entire regiment possessed a century earlier.
Increased Government Powers
Planned economies were necessary to fuel the increased demands of
total war (Boot, p. 199). The pre-industrial state was not equal to the
task of equipping and arming such large armies that were required in
modern warfare. Governments nationalized industries along with the
cooperation of major private companies. In Britain, France, and Germany,
military spending shot up 2,000 percent (Boot, p. 199).
Manipulation of Public Opinion
Public dissent was not encouraged. A military dictatorship controlled
Germany but even in the liberty-loving U.S. antiwar activists such as
the socialist Eugene Debs was subject to arrest and confinement (Boot,
p. 199).
Total war also meant controlling public opinion.
Even in democratic countries, special boards censored the press. Their
aim was to keep complete casualty figures and other discouraging news
from reaching the public. Government censors also restricted popular
literature, historical writings, motion pictures, and the arts.
Both sides waged a propaganda war. Propaganda is the spreading of
ideas to promote a cause or to damage an opposing cause. Governments
used propaganda to motivate military mobilization, especially in Britain
before conscription started in 1916. In France and Germany, propaganda
urged civilians to loan money to the government. Later in the war,
Allied propaganda played up the brutality of Germany’s invasion of
Belgium. The British and French press circulated tales of atrocities,
horrible acts against innocent people. Although some atrocities did
occur, often the stories were distorted by exaggerations or completely
made up.
Total War and Women
Women gained more
rights as they took jobs previously open only to men (Boot, p. 200). It
is not surprising that not long after the war women were granted the
right of suffrage.
Women played a critical role in total
war. As millions of men left to fight, women took over their jobs and
kept national economies going. Many women worked in war industries,
manufacturing weapons and supplies. Others joined women’s branches of
the armed forces. When food shortages threatened Britain, volunteers in
the Women’s Land Army went to the fields to grow their nation’s food.
Nurses shared the dangers of the men whose wounds they tended. At aid
stations close to the front lines, nurses often worked around the
clock, especially after a big “push” brought a flood of casualties. In
her diary, English nurse Vera Brittain describes sweating through
90-degree days in France, “stopping hemorrhages, replacing intestines,
and draining and reinserting innumerable rubber tubes” with “gruesome
human remnants heaped on the floor.”
War work gave women a
new sense of pride and confidence. After the war, most women had to give
up their jobs to men returning home. Still, they had challenged the
idea that women could not handle demanding and dangerous jobs. In many
countries, including Britain, Germany, and the United States, women’s
support for the war effort helped them finally win the right to vote,
after decades of struggle.
Laissez-faire economic structures
did not survive World War I. Social hierarchies broke down under the
transformation. Women were granted the right to vote. World War I is "a
conflict that could never have been waged on such a titanic,
transformative scale were it not for the changes in warfare that had
occurred in the previous half-century. This was the bittersweet legacy
of the Industrial Age (Boot, p. 201).
In-class assignment, with a partner, answer the question.
Reading Check
Summarizing
What was the effect of total war on ordinary citizens?
People in History
Edith Cavell
Like most ordinary people caught up in war, Edith Cavell (1865–1915)
did not plan on becoming a hero. An English nurse, she was in charge of a
hospital in Belgium. After the German invasion, Cavell cared for
wounded soldiers on both sides. She also helped Allied soldiers escape
to the Netherlands.
In 1915, the Germans arrested Cavell for
spying. As she faced a firing squad, her last reported words were,
“Standing as I do in view of God and Eternity, I realize that patriotism
is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness toward anyone.” Why
do you think the British government spread the story of Edith Cavell?
The Lusitania
Germany used U-boats to create its own blockade. In 1915, Germany
declared that it would sink all ships carrying goods to Britain. In May
1915, a German submarine torpedoed the British liner Lusitania off the
coast of Ireland. Almost 1,200 passengers were killed, including 128
Americans. Germany justified the attack, arguing that the Lusitania was
carrying weapons. When American President Woodrow Wilson threatened to
cut off diplomatic relations with Germany, though, Germany agreed to
restrict its submarine campaign. Before attacking any ship, U-boats
would surface and give warning, allowing neutral passengers to escape to
lifeboats. Unrestricted submarine warfare stopped—for the moment.
Preview:
The Russian Revolution
Key Terms
soviets
war communism
Background to Revolution
“Mr. War Minister!
We, soldiers from various regiments,. . . ask you to end the war and
its bloodshed at any cost…. If this is not done, then believe us when we
say that we will take our weapons and head out for our own hearths to
save our fathers, mothers, wives, and children from death by starvation
(which is nigh). And if we cannot save them, then we’d rather die with
them in our native lands then be killed, poisoned, or frozen to death
somewhere and cast into the earth like a dog.”
—Letter from the front, 1917
Note Taking
Reading Skill: Summarize Copy the time line below and fill it in as
you read this section. When you finish, write two sentences that
summarize the information in your time line.
Beginnings of Upheaval
The year 1913 marked the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty.
Everywhere, Russians honored the tsar and his family. Tsarina Alexandra
felt confident that the people loved Nicholas too much to ever threaten
him. “They are constantly frightening the emperor with threats of
revolution,” she told a friend, “and here,—you see it yourself—we need
merely to show ourselves and at once their hearts are ours.”
Appearances were deceiving. In March 1917, the first of two revolutions
would topple the Romanov dynasty and pave the way for even more radical
changes.
The outbreak of war in 1914 fueled national pride
and united Russians. Armies dashed to battle with enthusiasm. But like
the Crimean and Russo-Japanese wars, World War I quickly strained
Russian resources. Factories could not turn out enough supplies. The
transportation system broke down, delivering only a trickle of crucial
materials to the front. By 1915, many soldiers had no rifles and no
ammunition. Badly equipped and poorly led, they died in staggering
numbers. In 1915 alone, Russian casualties reached two million.
Vocabulary Builder
crucial—(kroo shul) adj. of vital importance
In a patriotic gesture, Nicholas II went to the front to take
personal charge. The decision proved a disastrous blunder. The tsar was
no more competent than many of his generals. Worse, he left domestic
affairs to the tsarina, Alexandra. In Nicholas’ absence, Alexandra
relied on the advice of Gregory Rasputin, an illiterate peasant and
self-proclaimed “holy man.” The tsarina came to believe that Rasputin
had miraculous powers after he helped her son, who suffered from
hemophilia, a disorder in which any injury can result in uncontrollable
bleeding.
Rasputin
By 1916, Rasputin’s influence over Alexandra had reached new heights
and weakened confidence in the government. Fearing for the monarchy, a
group of Russian nobles killed Rasputin on December 29, 1916.
The March Revolution
By March 1917, disasters on the battlefield, combined with food and
fuel shortages on the home front, brought the monarchy to collapse. In
St. Petersburg (renamed Petrograd during the war), workers were going on
strike. Marchers, mostly women, surged through the streets, shouting,
“Bread! Bread!” Troops refused to fire on the demonstrators, leaving the
government helpless. Finally, on the advice of military and political
leaders, the tsar abdicated.
Duma politicians then set up a
provisional, or temporary, government. Middle-class liberals in the
government began preparing a constitution for a new Russian republic. At
the same time, they continued the war against Germany.
Outside the provisional government, revolutionary socialists plotted
their own course. In Petrograd and other cities, they set up soviets, or
councils of workers and soldiers. At first, the soviets worked
democratically within the government. Before long, though, the
Bolsheviks, a radical socialist group, took charge. The leader of the
Bolsheviks was a determined revolutionary, V. I. Lenin.
The
revolutions of March and November 1917 are known to Russians as the
February and October revolutions. In 1917, Russia still used an old
calendar, which was 13 days behind the one used in Western Europe.
Russia adopted the Western calendar in 1918.
In-class assignment, with a partner, answer the question.
Reading Check
Identifying
Develop a sequence of events leading to the March Revolution.
The Rise of Lenin
Lenin
Vladimir
Ilyich Ulyanov (ool yahn uf) was born in 1870 to a middle-class family.
He adopted the name Lenin when he became a revolutionary. When he was
17, his older brother was arrested and hanged for plotting to kill the
tsar. The execution branded his family as a threat to the state and made
the young Vladimir hate the tsarist government.
A Brilliant Revolutionary
As a young man, Lenin read the works of Karl Marx and participated in
student demonstrations. He spread Marxist ideas among factory workers
along with other socialists, including Nadezhda Krupskaya (nah dyez duh
kroop sky uh), the daughter of a poor noble family. In 1895, Lenin and
Krupskaya were arrested and sent to Siberia. During their imprisonment,
they were married. After their release, they went into exile in
Switzerland. There they worked tirelessly to spread revolutionary ideas.
Lenin’s View of Marx
Lenin adapted Marxist ideas to fit Russian conditions. Marx had
predicted that the industrial working class would rise spontaneously to
overthrow capitalism. But Russia did not have a large urban proletariat.
Instead, Lenin called for an elite group to lead the revolution and set
up a “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Though this elite revolutionary
party represented a small percentage of socialists, Lenin gave them the
name Bolsheviks, meaning “majority.”
In Western Europe,
many leading socialists had come to think that socialism could be
achieved through gradual and moderate reforms such as higher wages,
increased suffrage, and social welfare programs. A group of socialists
in Russia, the Mensheviks, favored this approach. The Bolsheviks
rejected it. To Lenin, reforms of this nature were merely capitalist
tricks to repress the masses. Only revolution, he said, could bring
about needed changes.
In March 1917, Lenin was still in
exile. As Russia stumbled into revolution, Germany saw a chance to
weaken its enemy by helping Lenin return home. Lenin rushed across
Germany to the Russian frontier in a special train. He greeted a crowd
of fellow exiles and activists with this cry: “Long live the worldwide
Socialist revolution!”
Biography
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Lenin (1870–1924) was the son of a teacher and his wife who lived in a
little town on the Volga River. Vladimir lived with his parents and
five siblings in a rented wing of a large house. By all accounts it was a
happy home. Vladimir excelled at school and looked up to his older
brother Alexander. But when Vladimir was 16, his father died. When he
was 17, his beloved brother Alexander was hanged for plotting to kill
the tsar.
Still reeling from the death of his brother,
Vladimir enrolled at Kazan University. There he met other discontented
young people. They united to protest the lack of student freedom in the
university. Within three months, Vladimir was expelled for his part in
the demonstrations. How do you think Lenin’s early life affected his
later political ideas?
In-class assignment, with a partner, answer the question.
Reading Check
Examining
What was Lenin's plan when he arrived in Russia?
The Bolsheviks Seize Power
Lenin threw himself into the work of furthering the revolution.
Another dynamic Marxist revolutionary, Leon Trotsky, helped lead the
fight. To the hungry, war-weary Russian people, Lenin and the Bolsheviks
promised “Peace, Land, and Bread.”
The Provisional Government’s Mistakes
Meanwhile, the provisional government, led by Alexander Kerensky,
continued the war effort and failed to deal with land reform. Those
decisions proved fatal. Most Russians were tired of war. Troops at the
front were deserting in droves. Peasants wanted land, while city workers
demanded an end to the desperate shortages. In July 1917, the
government launched the disastrous Kerensky offensive against Germany.
By November, according to one official report, the army was “a huge
crowd of tired, poorly clad, poorly fed, embittered men.” Growing
numbers of troops mutinied. Peasants seized land and drove off fearful
landlords.
The Bolshevik Takeover
Conditions
were ripe for the Bolsheviks to make their move. In November 1917,
squads of Red Guards—armed factory workers—joined mutinous sailors from
the Russian fleet in attacking the provisional government. In just a
matter of days, Lenin’s forces overthrew the provisional government
without a struggle.
The Bolsheviks quickly seized power in
other cities. In Moscow, it took a week of fighting to blast the local
government out of the walled Kremlin, the former tsarist center of
government. Moscow became the Bolsheviks’ capital, and the Kremlin their
headquarters.
“We shall now occupy ourselves in Russia in
building up a proletarian socialist state,” declared Lenin. The
Bolsheviks ended private ownership of land and distributed land to
peasants. Workers were given control of the factories and mines. A new
red flag with an entwined hammer and sickle symbolized union between
workers and peasants. Throughout the land, millions thought they had at
last gained control over their own lives. In fact, the
Bolsheviks—renamed Communists—would soon become their new masters.
In-class assignment, with a partner, answer the question.
Reading Check
Describing
What was the impact of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on Russia?
Civil War in Russia
After the Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin quickly sought peace with
Germany. Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918, giving
up a huge chunk of its territory and its population. The cost of peace
was extremely high, but the Communist leaders knew that they needed all
their energy to defeat a collection of enemies at home. Russia’s
withdrawal affected the hopes of both the Allies and the Central Powers,
as you read in Section 3.
Vocabulary Builder
withdrawal—(with draw ul) n. the act of leaving
Opposing Forces
For three years, civil war raged between the “Reds,” as the
Communists were known, and the counterrevolutionary “Whites.” The
“White” armies were made up of tsarist imperial officers, Mensheviks,
democrats, and others, all of whom were united only by their desire to
defeat the Bolsheviks. Nationalist groups from many of the former
empire’s non-Russian regions joined them in their fight. Poland,
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania broke free, but nationalists in Ukraine,
the Caucasus, and Central Asia were eventually subdued.
The
Allies intervened in the civil war. They hoped that the Whites might
overthrow the Communists and support the fight against Germany. Britain,
France, and the United States sent forces to help the Whites. Japan
seized land in East Asia that tsarist Russia had once claimed. The
Allied presence, however, did little to help the Whites. The Reds
appealed to nationalism and urged Russians to drive out the foreigners.
In the long run, the Allied invasion fed Communist distrust of the West.
Brutality was common in the civil war. Counterrevolutionary forces
slaughtered captured Communists and tried to assassinate Lenin. The
Communists shot the former tsar and tsarina and their five children in
July 1918 to keep them from becoming a rallying symbol for
counterrevolutionary forces.
Identifying
Who opposed the new Bolshevik regime?
Triumph of the Communists
The Communists used terror not only against the Whites, but also to
control their own people. They organized the Cheka, a secret police
force much like the tsar’s. The Cheka executed ordinary citizens, even
if they were only suspected of taking action against the revolution. The
Communists also set up a network of forced-labor camps in 1919—which
grew under Stalin into the dreaded Gulag.
The Communists
adopted a policy known as “war communism.” They took over banks, mines,
factories, and railroads. Peasants in the countryside were forced to
deliver almost all of their crops to feed the army and hungry people in
the cities. Peasant laborers were drafted into the military or forced to
work in factories.
Meanwhile, Trotsky turned the Red Army
into an effective fighting force. He used former tsarist officers under
the close watch of commissars, Communist party officials assigned to the
army to teach party principles and ensure party loyalty. Trotsky’s
passionate speeches roused soldiers to fight. So did the order to shoot
every tenth man if a unit performed poorly.
The Reds’
position in the center of Russia gave them a strategic advantage. The
White armies were forced to attack separately from all sides. They were
never able to cooperate effectively with one another. By 1921, the
Communists had managed to defeat their scattered foes.
In-class assignment, with a partner, answer the question.
Reading Check
Contrasting
Why did the Red Army prevail over the White Army?
War and Revolution in Russia 1914 - 1921 by Dr Jonathan Smele
The social trauma caused by unprecedented rates of casualties
manifested itself in different ways, which have been the subject of
subsequent historical debate.[327]
The optimism of la belle époque was destroyed, and those who had fought in the war were referred to as the Lost Generation.[328] For years afterwards, people mourned the dead, the missing, and the many disabled.[329] Many soldiers returned with severe trauma, suffering from shell shock (also called neurasthenia, a condition related to posttraumatic stress disorder).[330]
Many more returned home with few after-effects; however, their silence
about the war contributed to the conflict's growing mythological status.
Though many participants did not share in the experiences of combat or
spend any significant time at the front, or had positive memories of
their service, the images of suffering and trauma became the widely
shared perception. Such historians as Dan Todman, Paul Fussell,
and Samuel Heyns have all published works since the 1990s arguing that
these common perceptions of the war are factually incorrect.
The "Lost Generation" was the generation that came of age during World War I. The term was popularized by Ernest Hemingway, who used it as one of two contrasting epigraphs for his novel, The Sun Also Rises. In that volume Hemingway credits the phrase to Gertrude Stein, who was then his mentor and patron. This generation included artists and writers who came of age during the war such as F. Scott Fitzgerald,[1] T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, Sherwood Anderson, John Dos Passos, John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, Waldo Peirce, Isadora Duncan, Abraham Walkowitz, Alan Seeger, Franz Kafka, Henry Miller, Aldous Huxley, Malcolm Cowley, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Erich Maria Remarque and the composers Sergei Prokofiev, Paul Hindemith, George Gershwin, and Aaron Copland.
Trench warfare is a type of land warfare using occupied fighting lines consisting largely of trenches,
in which troops are significantly protected from the enemy's small arms
fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery. The most famous
use of trench warfare is the Western Front in World War I. It has become a byword for stalemate, attrition, sieges and futility in conflict.[1]
Trench warfare occurred when a revolution in firepower was not matched by similar advances in mobility, resulting in a grueling form of warfare in which the defender held the advantage.[2] On the Western Front in 1914–18, both sides constructed elaborate trench and dugout systems opposing each other along a front, protected from assault by barbed wire, mines, and other obstacles. The area between opposing trench lines (known as "no man's land") was fully exposed to artillery fire from both sides. Attacks, even if successful, often sustained severe casualties.
With the development of armoured warfare, emphasis on trench warfare has declined, but still occurs where battle-lines become static.
Here is the horror, savagery and pointlessness of trench warfare. Opening scene of All Quiet on the Western Front, 1979 version.
https://youtu.be/SXtsiqrhqsU
Conditions in Trenches - Dan Snow's Battle of the Somme, 3:19
Dan Snow visits a reconstruction of a first world war trench, and takes a look at the conditions in the trenches at the Battle of the Somme according to Malins' footage.
https://youtu.be/FvYIIuxh2kY
Literature in World War I is generally thought to include poems,
novels and drama; diaries, letters, and memoirs are often included in
this category as well. Although the canon continues to be challenged,
the texts most frequently taught in schools and universities are lyrics
by Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen; poems by Ivor Gurney, Edward Thomas, Charles Sorley, David Jones and Isaac Rosenberg
are also widely anthologised. Many of the works during and about the
war were written by men, because of the war's intense demand on the
young men of that generation; however, a number of women (especially in the British tradition)
created literature about the war, often observing the effects of the
war on soldiers, domestic spaces, and the homefront more generally.
Wilfred Owen: “The Pity of War” 1146
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918) was an English poet and soldier, one of the leading poets of the First World War. His shocking, realistic war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was heavily influenced by his friend and mentor Siegfried Sassoon, and stood in stark contrast both to the public perception of war at the time and to the confidently patriotic verse written by earlier war poets such as Rupert Brooke. Among his best-known works – most of which were published posthumously – are "Dulce et Decorum est", "Insensibility", "Anthem for Doomed Youth", "Futility" and "Strange Meeting".
The anniversary of the death of one of our greatest war poets born and raised in Shropshire takes place this month.
Wilfred Owen's life and works will be commemorated on Radio Three after Remembrance Day. Joanne Writtle reports.
7th November 2006.
This video of the Muslims Against Crusaders group protesting by chanting "British Soldiers Go to Hell". . . "Burn, Burn, Burn in Hell. This video shows without doubt their their utter disrespect for English culture, for Britishness, for the memory of the dead, and for common decency.
https://youtu.be/8yBc-6Lu_B0
In the Trenches: Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front 1146
All Quiet on the Western Front (German: Im Westen nichts Neues, lit. In the West Nothing New) is a novel by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War I. The book describes the German soldiers' extreme physical and mental stress during the war, and the detachment from civilian life felt by many of these soldiers upon returning home from the front.
The novel was first published in November and December 1928 in the German newspaper Vossische Zeitung and in book form in late January 1929. The book and its sequel, The Road Back (1930), were among the books banned and burned in Nazi Germany. All Quiet on the Western Front sold 2.5 million copies in 22 languages in its first 18 months in print.[1]
In 1930, the book was adapted as an Academy-Award winning film of the same name, directed by Lewis Milestone.
In the first scene, Paul Baumer (Richard Thomas) is chastised by his teacher (Donald Pleasence) for lack of attention in class, (specifically for furtively making a sketch of a small bird). He is ridiculed as an 'idealist' and a 'dreamer'.
In the final trench scene, Paul sympathetically chivvies his exhausted soldiers into staying alert for their own safety. Yet moments later he himself becomes (fatally) distracted by a small bird, the same symbol of beauty that had so irritated his mentor three years previously. Other ironic subtleties reveal themselves here. Paul now seeks solace in smoking, a habit he had until now totally despised. (Recall how he had haughtily rejected his teacher's proffering of a cigarette!). Most tellingly, the movie links the image of Paul's drawings as the metaphor for the idealism of the new generation, a hope that died with Paul in the mud of those hellish trenches.
If you enjoyed this excerpt, I recommend the complete film now superbly re-issued (with cuts restored) on blu-ray dvd.
https://youtu.be/7m8J_2KHV8w
William Butler Yeats and the Specter of Collapse 1147
William Butler Yeats (/ˈjeɪts/; 13 June 1865 – 28 January 1939) was an Irish poet and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms. Yeats was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and, along with Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn, and others, founded the Abbey Theatre, where he served as its chief during its early years. In 1923, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature as the first Irishman so honoured[1] for what the Nobel Committee described as "inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation". Yeats is considered to be one of the few writers who completed their greatest works after being awarded the Nobel Prize; such works include The Tower (1928) and The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933).[2]
William Butler Yeats was born in Sandymount, Ireland and educated there and in London; he spent his childhood holidays in County Sligo. He studied poetry in his youth and from an early age was fascinated by both Irish legends and the occult. Those topics feature in the first phase of his work, which lasted roughly until the turn of the 20th century. His earliest volume of verse was published in 1889, and its slow-paced and lyrical poems display Yeats's debts to Edmund Spenser, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and the poets of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. From 1900, Yeats's poetry grew more physical and realistic. He largely renounced the transcendental beliefs of his youth, though he remained preoccupied with physical and spiritual masks, as well as with cyclical theories of life.
Thomas Stearns Eliot OM (26 September 1888 – 4 January 1965), better known by his pen name T. S. Eliot, was an American-born British essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic and "one of the twentieth century's major poets".[2] He moved to England in 1914 at age 25, settling, working and marrying there. He was eventually naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39, renouncing his American citizenship.[3]
Eliot attracted widespread attention for his poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1915), which is seen as a masterpiece of the Modernist movement. It was followed by some of the best-known poems in the English language, including The Waste Land (1922), "The Hollow Men" (1925), "Ash Wednesday" (1930) and Four Quartets (1945).[4] He is also known for his seven plays, particularly Murder in the Cathedral (1935). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948, "for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry".[5][6]
T.S.Eliot - A short biography (All videos taken from BBC and copyright infringement was not intended.)
https://youtu.be/x87fqWlBATA
Escape from Despair: Dada in the Capitals 1148
Dada (/ˈdɑːdɑː/) or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century. Dada in Zürich, Switzerland, began in 1916 at Cabaret Voltaire, spreading to Berlin shortly thereafter, but the height of New York Dada was the year before, in 1915.[1] The term anti-art, a precursor to Dada, was coined by Marcel Duchamp around 1913 when he created his first readymades.[2] Dada, in addition to being anti-war, had political affinities with the radical left and was also anti-bourgeois.[3]
At least two works qualified as pre-Dadaist, a posteriori, had already sensitized the public and artists alike: Ubu Roi (1896) by Alfred Jarry, and the ballet Parade (1916–17) by Erik Satie.[4] The roots of Dada lay in pre-war avant-garde. Cubism and the development of collage, combined with Wassily Kandinsky's theoretical writings and abstraction, detached the movement from the constraints of reality and convention. The influence of French poets and the writings of German Expressionists liberated Dada from the tight correlation between words and meaning.[5] Avant-garde circles outside France knew of pre-war Parisian developments. They had seen (or participated in) Cubist exhibitions held at Galería Dalmau, Barcelona (1912), Galerie Der Sturm in Berlin (1912), the Armory show in New York (1913), SVU Mánes in Prague (1914), several Jack of Diamonds exhibitions in Moscow and at De Moderne Kunstkring, Amsterdam (between 1911 and 1915). Futurism developed in response to the work of various artists. Dada subsequently combined these approaches.[6]
Dada activities included public gatherings, demonstrations, and publication of art/literary journals; passionate coverage of art, politics, and culture were topics often discussed in a variety of media. Key figures in the movement included Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings, Hans Arp, Raoul Hausmann, Hannah Höch, Johannes Baader, Tristan Tzara, Francis Picabia, Richard Huelsenbeck, George Grosz, John Heartfield, Marcel Duchamp, Beatrice Wood, Kurt Schwitters, Hans Richter, and Max Ernst, among others. The movement influenced later styles like the avant-garde and downtown music movements, and groups including surrealism, Nouveau Réalisme, pop art and Fluxus.
"Russian Revolution" is the collective term for a pair of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which dismantled the Tsarist autocracy and led to the eventual rise of the Soviet Union. The Russian Empire collapsed with the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II, and the old regime was replaced by a provisional government during the first revolution of February 1917 (March in the Gregorian calendar; the older Julian calendar was in use in Russia at the time). In the second revolution that October, the Provisional Government was removed and replaced with a Bolshevik (Communist) government.
The February Revolution (March 1917) was a revolution focused around Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg), then capital of Russia. In the chaos, members of the Imperial parliament or Duma assumed control of the country, forming the Russian Provisional Government. The army leadership felt they did not have the means to suppress the revolution, resulting in Nicholas' abdication. The Soviets (workers' councils), which were led by more radical socialist factions, initially permitted the Provisional Government to rule, but insisted on a prerogative to influence the government and control various militias. The February Revolution took place in the context of heavy military setbacks during the First World War (1914–18), which left much of the Russian army in a state of mutiny.
A period of dual power ensued, during which the Provisional Government held state power while the national network of Soviets, led by socialists, had the allegiance of the lower classes and the political left. During this chaotic period there were frequent mutinies, protests and many strikes. When the Provisional Government chose to continue fighting the war with Germany, the Bolsheviks and other socialist factions campaigned for stopping the conflict. The Bolsheviks turned workers militias under their control into the Red Guards (later the Red Army) over which they exerted substantial control.[1]
In the October Revolution (November in the Gregorian calendar), the Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, and the workers' Soviets overthrew the Provisional Government in Petrograd and established the Russian SFSR, eventually shifting the capital to Moscow in 1918. The Bolsheviks appointed themselves as leaders of various government ministries and seized control of the countryside, establishing the Cheka to quash dissent. To end Russia’s participation in the First World War, the Bolshevik leaders signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany in March 1918.
Civil war erupted among the "Reds" (Bolsheviks), the "Whites" (anti-socialist factions), and non-Bolshevik socialists. It continued for several years, during which the Bolsheviks defeated both the Whites and all rival socialists. In this way, the Revolution paved the way for the creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1922. While many notable historical events occurred in Moscow and Petrograd, there was also a visible movement in cities throughout the state, among national minorities throughout the empire and in the rural areas, where peasants took over and redistributed land.
An animated overview of events, mixing computer graphics, drawings, photographs and propaganda posters.
Written and narrated by Betsy Ehlers for RUS 233: http://catalog.oregonstate.edu/Course...
https://youtu.be/22nzopiyWx0
Vladimir Lenin and the Soviet State 1152
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, alias Lenin (/ˈlɛnɪn/;[1] Russian: Влади́мир Ильи́ч Улья́нов; Ле́нин,[1] 22 April [O.S. 10 April] 1870 – 21 January 1924), was a Russian communist revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as head of government of the Russian Republic from 1917 to 1918, of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic from 1918 to 1924, and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. Under his administration, Russia and then the wider Soviet Union became a one-party communist state governed by the Russian Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, his political theories are known as Leninism.
Born to a wealthy middle-class family in Simbirsk, Lenin became interested in revolutionary socialist politics following his brother's execution in 1887. Expelled from Kazan Imperial University for participating in protests against the Russian Empire's Tsarist regime, he devoted the following years to a law degree. In 1893, he moved to Saint Petersburg and became a senior figure in the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). Arrested for sedition and exiled to Shushenskoye for three years, there he married Nadezhda Krupskaya. After his exile, he moved to Western Europe, where he became a prominent party theorist through his publications. In 1903, he took a key role in a RSDLP ideological split, leading the Bolshevik faction against Julius Martov's Mensheviks. Encouraging insurrection during Russia's failed Revolution of 1905, he later campaigned for the First World War to be transformed into a Europe-wide proletarian revolution, which as a Marxist he believed would cause the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement with socialism. After the 1917 February Revolution ousted the Tsar and established a Provisional Government, he returned to Russia to campaign for the new regime's replacement by a Bolshevik-led government of the soviets.
Lenin played a leading role in the October Revolution of 1917, which overthrew the Provisional Government and established a one-party state under the new Communist Party. His government abolished Russia's elected Constituent Assembly, withdrew from the First World War by signing a treaty with the Central Powers, and granted temporary independence to non-Russian nations under Russian control. Ruling by decree, it redistributed land among the peasantry and nationalized banks and large-scale industry. Opponents were suppressed in the Red Terror, a violent campaign orchestrated by the state security services; tens of thousands were killed and many others interned in concentration camps. Lenin's government defeated anti-Bolshevik armies in the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1922. Responding to famine and popular uprisings, in 1921 Lenin introduced a mixed economic system with the New Economic Policy. Creating the Communist International and waging the Polish–Soviet War to promote world revolution, Lenin's government also united Russia with neighboring territories to form the Soviet Union in 1922. In increasingly poor health, Lenin expressed opposition to the growing power of his successor, Joseph Stalin, before dying at his dacha in Gorki.
Widely considered one of the most significant and influential figures of the 20th century, Lenin was the posthumous subject of a pervasive personality cult within the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1991. He became an ideological figurehead behind Marxism-Leninism and thus a prominent influence over the international communist movement. A controversial and highly divisive individual, Marxist-Leninists view Lenin as a champion of socialism and the working classes, while critics on both the left and right see him as the founder of a totalitarian dictatorship responsible for civil war and mass human rights abuses.
View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/history-vs-...
Vladimir Lenin overthrew Russian Czar Nicholas II and founded the Soviet Union, forever changing the course of Russian politics. But was he a hero who toppled an oppressive tyranny or a villain who replaced it with another? Alex Gendler puts this controversial figure on trial, exploring both sides of a nearly century-long debate.
Lesson by Alex Gendler, animation by Brett Underhill.
https://youtu.be/9N8hsXQapjY
In the Communist Party, there was dissent from the Group of Democratic Centralism and the Workers' Opposition, both of which criticized the Russian state as too centralised and bureaucratic.[345] The Workers' Opposition, who had connections to the official state trade unions, also expressed the concern that the government had lost the trust of the Russian working class.[346] The 'trade union discussion' preoccupied the party in this period; Trotsky angered the Workers' Opposition by suggesting that the trade unions be eliminated, seeing them as superfluous in a "workers' state", but Lenin disagreed, believing it best to allow them to exist and most of the Bolsheviks eventually embraced the latter view.[347] To deal with the dissent, at the Tenth Party Congress in February 1921, Lenin introduced a ban on factional activity within the party, under pain of expulsion.[348]
Caused in part by a drought,[349] the Russian famine of 1921 was the most severe that the country had experienced since that of 1891,[350] resulting in around five million deaths.[351] The famine was exacerbated by government requisitioning,[352] as well as the export of large quantities of Russian grain.[353] To aid the famine victims, the U.S. government established an American Relief Administration to distribute food,[354] although Lenin was suspicious of this aid, and had it closely monitored.[355] During the famine, Patriarch Tikhon called on Orthodox churches to sell unnecessary items to help feed the starving, an action endorsed by the government.[356] In February 1922 Sovnarkom went further by calling on all valuables belonging to religious institutions to be forcibly appropriated and sold.[357] Tikhon opposed the sale of any items used within the Eucharist and many clergy resisted the appropriations, resulting in violence.[358]
In 1920 and 1921, there were peasant uprisings against the government, sparked by local opposition to the requisitioning but these were suppressed.[359] Among the most significant was the Tambov Rebellion, which was put down by the Red Army.[360] In February 1921, workers went on strike in Petrograd, resulting in the government proclaiming martial law in the city and sending the Red Army to quell demonstrations.[361] In March, the Kronstadt rebellion began when sailors in Kronstadt revolted against the Bolshevik government, demanding that all socialists be given freedom of press, that independent trade unions be given freedom of assembly and that peasants be allowed free markets and not be the subject to requisitioning. Lenin declared that the mutineers had been misled by the Socialist Revolutionaries and foreign imperialists and called for violent reprisals.[362] Under Trotsky's leadership, the Red Army put down the rebellion on 17 March, with thousands dead and many survivors sent to labour camps.[363]
"[Y]ou must attempt first to build small bridges which shall lead to a land of small peasant holdings through State Capitalism to Socialism. Otherwise you will never lead tens of millions of people to Communism. This is what the objective forces of the development of the Revolution have taught."
Lenin on the NEP, 1921.[364]
In February 1921, Lenin suggested the introduction of a New Economic Policy (NEP) to the Politburo, eventually convincing most senior Bolsheviks of its necessity, with it passing into law in April.[365] Lenin explained the policy in a booklet, On the Food Tax, in which he stated that the NEP represented a return to the original Bolshevik economic plans; he claimed that they had been derailed by the civil war, in which they had been forced to resort to the economic policies of "war communism".[366] The NEP allowed some private enterprise within Russia, permitting the reintroduction of the wage system and allowing peasants to sell produce on the open market and being taxed on their earnings.[367] The policy also allowed for a return to privately owned small industry, although basic industry, transport and foreign trade remained under state control.[368] Lenin termed this "state capitalism",[369] and many Bolsheviks thought it to be a betrayal of socialist principles.[370] Lenin biographers have often characterised the introduction of the NEP as one of his most significant achievements,[371] with Service suggesting that had it not been implemented then the Bolshevik government would have been quickly overthrown amid popular uprisings.[372]
In January 1920, the government brought in universal labour conscription, ensuring that all citizens aged between 16 and 50 had to work.[373] Lenin also called for a mass electrification project, the GOELRO plan, which began in February 1920; Lenin's declaration that "communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country" would be widely cited in later years.[374] Seeking to advance the Soviet economy through foreign trade, the Soviet Union sent delegates to the Genoa Conference; Lenin had hoped to attend but was prevented by ill health.[375] The conference resulted in a Russian agreement with Germany, the Treaty of Rapallo,[376] and the Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement was negotiated.[377] Lenin hoped that by allowing foreign corporations to invest in Russia, it would exacerbate rivalries between the capitalist nations and hasten their downfall and tried to rent the oil fields of Kamchatka to an American corporation, to exacerbate tensions between the U.S. and Japan, who desired Kamchatka for their empire.[378]
The Russian Revolution of 1917 was actually Act Two of a long festering discontent with the autocratic treatment of Tsar Nicholas II and the corruption of some of his government members. The first act came in 1905 when 80,000 workers went on strike in St. Petersburg. It gained strength on Bloody Sunday when unarmed demonstrators were gunned down by Imperial troops. Eventually, 400,000 workers across the country were on strike, including a Naval mutiny among seamen of the Black Sea fleet. The 1905 uprising was not successful, but it left much bitterness. That, coupled with military disasters against Germans in the first world war, plus the royal interference of an monk called Rasputin, and the return of an exiled Bolshevic named Vladimir Lenin, led to the overthrow of the Provisonal Government in St. Petersburg. The tsar and his family were arrested and eventually murdered. Civil war raged for a time between the Bolshevic Red Army and the loyalist White Army. But the world had changed significantly. For music, we get a minute of the traditional "God Save the Tsar," interrupted by an explosion, then the Soviet National Anthem "The Internationale," sung by The Red Army Choir.
https://youtu.be/eEluD83DlxE
Freud, Jung, and the Art of the Unconscious 1154
Sigmund Freud (/ˈfrɔɪd/ FROYD;[2] German: [ˈziːkmʊnt ˈfʁɔʏt]; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst.[3] Freud was born to Galician Jewish parents in the Moravian town of Freiberg, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He qualified as a doctor of medicine in 1881 at the University of Vienna.[4][5] Upon completing his habilitation in 1885, he was appointed a docent in neuropathology and became an affiliated professor in 1902.[6] Freud lived and worked in Vienna, having set up his clinical practice there in 1886. In 1938 Freud left Austria to escape the Nazis. He died in exile in the United Kingdom in 1939.
In creating psychoanalysis, Freud developed therapeutic techniques such as the use of free association and discovered transference, establishing its central role in the analytic process. Freud's redefinition of sexuality to include its infantile forms led him to formulate the Oedipus complex as the central tenet of psychoanalytical theory.[7] His analysis of dreams as wish-fulfillments provided him with models for the clinical analysis of symptom formation and the mechanisms of repression as well as for elaboration of his theory of the unconscious.[8] Freud postulated the existence of libido, an energy with which mental processes and structures are invested and which generates erotic attachments, and a death drive, the source of compulsive repetition, hate, aggression and neurotic guilt.[9] In his later work Freud developed a wide-ranging interpretation and critique of religion and culture.
Psychoanalysis remains influential within psychology, psychiatry, and psychotherapy, and across the humanities. As such, it continues to generate extensive and highly contested debate with regard to its therapeutic efficacy, its scientific status, and whether it advances or is detrimental to the feminist cause.[10] Nonetheless, Freud's work has suffused contemporary Western thought and popular culture. In the words of W. H. Auden's 1940 poetic tribute, by the time of Freud's death, he had become "a whole climate of opinion / under whom we conduct our different lives."[11]
Hi there! I'm Dr. Sean, a San Francisco-based a psychologist who teaches the online science-based steps to consistently feeling and performing your best so you can be your purpose. The fun, easy to follow steps are at http://www.beyourpurpose.com
If you want, you can read the Introduction the Be Your Purpose book right here:
http://beyourpurpose.com/new/get-star...
I wrote this video from inside Dr. Freud’s home office in Vienna, Austria when I was writing the book, Be Your Purpose. The entire home that Freud lived in has been made into a very cool museum in Vienna.
Sigmund Freud taught us that our behaviors are driven by all sorts of things that happened to us in the past but that we are often not at all aware of in the present moment. Many of the important things that influence your life today originated when you were very young — sometimes, before you even knew how to speak.
http://www.BeYourPurpose.com teaches you the steps to knowing the important events, memories and influences in your life so you can discover your life purpose, and then strategically move toward your personal goals using the powerful tools of psychology like meditating and "Mind Exercising."
Mind Exercising is a form of mediation that sharpens your attention, strengthens your memory and measurably improves other mental abilities. Mind Exercise also teaches you to more clearly hear the inner dialogue that is occurring inside your brain. When you can hear your inner voice clearly, you become much more effective when making changes that you want to make to achieve your personal goals and discover and live out your life purpose.
That’s why Be Your Purpose teaches you how to meditate and Mind Exercise right from the first step you take in your inner life training. You can try 30 days of free at http://www.BeYourPurpose.com anytime.
Why Mind Exercise? You can watch a detailed talk I gave to answer that question right here: https://youtu.be/d5V46IyNKVg
Imagine knowing your own psychology well enough to know exactly how and when you feel and perform at your best. And imagine having the ability to conjure a state of being on demand—infusing yourself with meaning, direction, motivation, and empathy whenever you choose—to know the next best step to take in your life. What kind of change would that mean for you?
Now stop imagining, and join me on a journey where you actually find your life purpose, connect to it at will, and live it out. There are no bounds to what that can mean. As a performance psychologist, I work with Olympic athletes to win gold. I work with couples to recapture harmony and joy. I work with artists and actors to access vast creativity. I work with business leaders to “make it rain.” And I work with people feeling sad, anxious, frustrated, heartbroken, or numb to feel fulfilled.
Regardless of the goal, our journey to mastery always begins with Be Your Purpose. Now, with direct delivery to your inbox you can complete the steps from wherever you are. Master the same world-class psychology and brain science process that teaches you how to connect to your unique life purpose and chart a strategic, scientifically based path to your personal goals—whatever they may be, whatever you want to become.
Let’s begin this new adventure together. Try it free for 30 days at http://www.BeYourPurpose.com.
Dr. Sean Sullivan
https://youtu.be/XCtm0FSGZus
Heinrich Wölfflin was not the only scholar to invoke psychological theories in the study of art. Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud wrote a book on the artist Leonardo da Vinci, in which he used Leonardo's paintings to interrogate the artist's psyche and sexual orientation. Freud inferred from his analysis that Leonardo was probably homosexual.
Though the use of posthumous material to perform psychoanalysis is controversial among art historians, especially since the sexual mores of Leonardo's time and Freud's are different, it is often attempted. One of the best-known psychoanalytic scholars is Laurie Schneider Adams, who wrote a popular textbook, Art Across Time, and a book Art and Psychoanalysis.
An unsuspecting turn for the history of art criticism came in 1914 when Sigmund Freud published a psychoanalytical interpretation of Michelangelo’s Moses titled Der Moses des Michelangelo as one of the first psychology based analyses on a work of art.[11] Freud first published this work shortly after reading Vasari’s Lives. For unknown purposes, Freud originally published the article anonymously.
Carl Jung also applied psychoanalytic theory to art. C.G. Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker, and founder of analytical psychology. Jung's approach to psychology emphasized understanding the psyche through exploring the worlds of dreams, art, mythology, world religion and philosophy. Much of his life's work was spent exploring Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology, sociology, as well as literature and the arts. His most notable contributions include his concept of the psychological archetype, the collective unconscious, and his theory of synchronicity. Jung believed that many experiences perceived as coincidence were not merely due to chance but, instead, suggested the manifestation of parallel events or circumstances reflecting this governing dynamic.[12] He argued that a collective unconscious and archetypal imagery were detectable in art. His ideas were particularly popular among American Abstract expressionists in the 1940s and 1950s.[13] His work inspired the surrealist concept of drawing imagery from dreams and the unconscious.
Jung emphasized the importance of balance and harmony. He cautioned that modern humans rely too heavily on science and logic and would benefit from integrating spirituality and appreciation of the unconscious realm. His work not only triggered analytical work by art historians, but it became an integral part of art-making. Jackson Pollock, for example, famously created a series of drawings to accompany his psychoanalytic sessions with his Jungian psychoanalyst, Dr. Joseph Henderson. Henderson who later published the drawings in a text devoted to Pollock's sessions realized how powerful the drawings were as a therapeutic tool.[14]
The legacy of psychoanalysis in art history has been profound, and extends beyond Freud and Jung. The prominent feminist art historian Griselda Pollock, for example, draws upon psychoanalysis both in her reading into contemporary art and in her rereading of modernist art. With Griselda Pollock's reading of French feminist psychoanalysis and in particular the writings of Julia Kristeva and Bracha L. Ettinger, as with Rosalind Krauss readings of Jacques Lacan and Jean-François Lyotard and Catherine de Zegher's curatorial rereading of art, Feminist theory written in the fields of French feminism and Psychoanalysis has strongly informed the reframing of both men and women artists in art history.
Civilization and Its Discontents is a book by Sigmund Freud. Written in 1929, and first published in German in 1930 as Das Unbehagen in der Kultur ("The Uneasiness in Civilization"). It is considered one of Freud's most important and widely read works.[1]
In this seminal book, Sigmund Freud enumerates what he sees as the fundamental tensions between civilization and the individual. The primary friction, he asserts, stems from the individual's quest for instinctive freedom and civilization's contrary demand for conformity and instinctive repression. Freud states that when any situation that is desired by the pleasure principle is prolonged, it creates a feeling of mild contentment. Many of humankind's primitive instincts (for example, the desire to kill and the insatiable craving for sexual gratification) are clearly harmful to the well-being of a human community. As a result, civilization creates laws that prohibit killing, rape, and adultery, and it implements severe punishments if these rules are broken. Thus our possibilities for happiness are restricted by the law. This process, argues Freud, is an inherent quality of civilization that gives rise to perpetual feelings of discontent among its citizens.
Freud's theory is based on the notion that humans have certain characteristic instincts that are immutable[citation needed]. Most notably, the desires for sex, and the predisposition to violent aggression towards authority figures and sexual competitors, who obstruct the individual's path to gratification.
This work should be understood in the context of contemporary events: World War I undoubtedly influenced Freud and had an impact on his central observation about the tension between the individual and civilization. In a nation still recovering from a particularly brutal war, Freud developed thoughts published two years earlier in The Future of an Illusion (1927), wherein he criticized organized religion as a collective neurosis. Freud, an avowed atheist, argued that religion has tamed asocial instincts and created a sense of community around a shared set of beliefs, thus helping a civilization. Yet at the same time, organized religion exacts an enormous psychological cost on the individual by making him or her perpetually subordinate to the primal father figure embodied by God.[9]
The Jungian Archetype 1155
In Jungian psychology, archetypes are highly developed elements of the collective unconscious. Being unconscious, the existence of archetypes can only be deduced indirectly by examining behavior, images, art, myths, religions, or dreams. Carl Jung understood archetypes as universal, archaic patterns and images that derive from the collective unconscious and are the psychic counterpart of instinct.[1] They are inherited potentials which are actualized when they enter consciousness as images or manifest in behavior on interaction with the outside world.[2] They are autonomous and hidden forms which are transformed once they enter consciousness and are given particular expression by individuals and their cultures.
Strictly speaking, Jungian archetypes refer to unclear underlying forms or the archetypes-as-such from which emerge images and motifs such as the mother, the child, the trickster, and the flood among others. It is history, culture and personal context that shape these manifest representations thereby giving them their specific content. These images and motifs are more precisely called archetypal images. However it is common for the term archetype to be used interchangeably to refer to both archetypes-as-such and archetypal images.[2]
Surrealism was a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for its visual artworks and writings. The aim was to "resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality". Artists painted unnerving, illogical scenes with photographic precision, created strange creatures from everyday objects and developed painting techniques that allowed the unconscious to express itself.[1]
Surrealist works feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and non sequitur; however, many Surrealist artists and writers regard their work as an expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost, with the works being an artifact. Leader André Breton was explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was, above all, a revolutionary movement.
Surrealism developed largely out of the Dada activities during World War I and the most important center of the movement was Paris. From the 1920s onward, the movement spread around the globe, eventually affecting the visual arts, literature, film, and music of many countries and languages, as well as political thought and practice, philosophy, and social theory.
What Is Surrealism?. Part of the series: Modern Art History. Surrealism began in the early 20th century and was made famous by Salvador Dali, who created fantasy-like dreamscapes that were technically perfect, but often troubling. Discover the origin of surrealism, which also has roots in the work of Sigmund Freud, with information from an art historian, critic and curator in this free video on art. Read more: http://www.ehow.com/video_4755768_wha...
https://youtu.be/oI0gGEjY-GY
Experimentation and the Literary Life: The Stream-of-Consciousness Novel 1163
In literary criticism, stream of consciousness, also known as interior monologue, is a narrative mode or device that depicts the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind.[1] The term was coined by William James in 1890 in his The Principles of Psychology, and in 1918 May Sinclair first applied the term stream of consciousness, in a literary context, when discussing Dorothy Richardson's novels.
Answers a viewer's question about the uses and practicality of stream of consciousness.
Historical and speculative novelist K.M. Weiland offers tips and essays about the writing life to help other writers understand the ins and outs of the craft and the psychology behind the inspiration.
Intro music by Kevin MacLeod: http://incompetech.com/
Video Transcript: One of you asked that I do a video on the technique of stream of consciousness and its best applications. "Stream of consciousness" is the term applied to a form of narrative that's found in deep POVs. In fact, it allows authors to delve deeper into their narrators' minds than just about any other technique. Stream of consciousness indicates a progression of internal narrative that tries to mimic real-life thought patterns: rapid-fire delivery, jumps in association and logic, that sort of thing. It's often portrayed on the page with very little punctuation or even capitalization. In other words, you're pretty much just letting your character's thoughts flood onto the page without imposing any structure on them.
Stream of consciousness had a brief stint of popularity in the first half of the 20th century. Classic authors such as James Joyce and William Faulkner are known for their use of the technique. But is it something that's useful to modern writers? The answer to that is, yes and no. The advantage of stream of consciousness is three-fold:
1. It pulls readers deep into the narrator's mind.
2. It can be used to lend a breathless, poetic rhythm to your story.
3. It can create an interesting verisimilitude by mimicking real-life thought patterns.
But stream of consciousness also comes packed with lots of disadvantages. The biggest one is simply that it can end up being pretty darn near incomprehensible to readers. Joyce and Faulkner might have been able to overcome a small stumbling block like that, but most of us can't, particularly in popular genre fiction. Stream of consciousness is pretty much relegated to literary fiction these days. However, you can use it to good effect in small doses to convey harried, detached, or delirious mindsets in your character. Don't be afraid to play with it, but always be aware of the ramifications of the effect you're trying to create.
https://youtu.be/w8gOWtSWR_8
Joyce, Ulysses, and Sylvia Beach 1164
James Augustine[1] Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist and poet. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde, and is regarded as one of the most influential and important authors of the twentieth century.
Joyce is best known for Ulysses (1922), a landmark work in which the episodes of Homer's Odyssey are paralleled in an array of contrasting literary styles, perhaps most prominent among these the stream of consciousness technique he utilized. Other well-known works are the short-story collection Dubliners (1914), and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Finnegans Wake (1939). His other writings include three books of poetry, a play, occasional journalism, and his published letters.
Joyce was born in 41 Brighton Square, Rathgar, Dublin—about half a mile from his mother's birthplace in Terenure—into a middle-class family on the way down. A brilliant student, he excelled at the Jesuit schools Clongowes and Belvedere, despite the chaotic family life imposed by his father's alcoholism and unpredictable finances. He went on to attend University College Dublin.
In 1904, in his early twenties, Joyce emigrated permanently to continental Europe with his partner (and later wife) Nora Barnacle. They lived in Trieste, Paris, and Zurich. Though most of his adult life was spent abroad, Joyce's fictional universe centres on Dublin, and is populated largely by characters who closely resemble family members, enemies and friends from his time there. Ulysses in particular is set with precision in the streets and alleyways of the city. Shortly after the publication of Ulysses, he elucidated this preoccupation somewhat, saying, "For myself, I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal."
Ulysses is a modernist novel by Irish writer James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach in February 1922, in Paris. It is considered to be one of the most important works of modernist literature,[1] and has been called "a demonstration and summation of the entire movement".[2] According to Declan Kiberd, "Before Joyce, no writer of fiction had so foregrounded the process of thinking."[3]
Ulysses chronicles the peripatetic appointments and encounters of Leopold Bloom in Dublin in the course of an ordinary day, 16 June 1904.[4] Ulysses is the Latinised name of Odysseus, the hero of Homer's epic poem Odyssey, and the novel establishes a series of parallels between the poem and the novel, with structural correspondences between the characters and experiences of Leopold Bloom and Odysseus, Molly Bloom and Penelope, and Stephen Dedalus and Telemachus, in addition to events and themes of the early twentieth century context of modernism, Dublin, and Ireland's relationship to Britain. The novel imitates registers of centuries of English literature and is highly allusive.
Ulysses is approximately 265,000 words in length[5] and is divided into eighteen episodes. Since publication, the book has attracted controversy and scrutiny, ranging from early obscenity trials to protracted textual "Joyce Wars". Ulysses' stream-of-consciousness technique, careful structuring, and experimental prose — full of puns, parodies, and allusions — as well as its rich characterisation and broad humour, made the book a highly regarded novel in the modernist pantheon. Joyce fans worldwide now celebrate 16 June as Bloomsday. In 1998, the American publishing firm Modern Library ranked Ulysses first on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.[6]
James Joyce - Ulysses: Molly Bloom's Soliloquy, The Last 50 Lines, 3:06
Angeline Ball in her IFTA Award winning role as Molly Bloom from the film Bloom. Official site of the film is www.ulysses.ie
Joycean scholar David Norris said that she "is quite the best of all the myriad of Molly Blooms that I have seen." While Charles Byrne of the Royal Television Society declared that, "This Molly Bloom would even make Sharon Stone blush. Angeline Ball was born to play the role. She is voluptuous and earthy and, in short, she is every living man's fantasy."
https://youtu.be/ii_aZ6djNkM
Virginia Woolf: In the Mind of Mrs. Dalloway 1165
Adeline Virginia Woolf (née Stephen; 25 January 1882 – 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the foremost modernists of the twentieth century.
During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a central figure in the influential Bloomsbury Group of intellectuals. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929), with its famous dictum, "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."
Woolf suffered from severe bouts of mental illness throughout her life, thought to have been what is now termed bipolar disorder,[1] and committed suicide by drowning in 1941 at the age of 59.
In 1923 London, socialite Clarissa Dalloway's well-planned party is overshadowed by the return of an old suitor she had known 33 years earlier. Cast: Vanessa Redgrave, Michael Kitchen, Natascha McElhone, Alan Cox, Rupert Graves.
Director: Marleen Gorris
Writers: Eileen Atkins (screenplay), Virginia Woolf (novel)
No Copyright Intended. I own nothing, this is just uploaded for fans, made by a fan.
https://youtu.be/p6Iv7r-aRWs
Marcel Proust and the Novel of Memory 1166
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (/pruːst/;[1] French: [maʁsɛl pʁust]; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental novel À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time; earlier translated as Remembrance of Things Past), published in seven parts between 1913 and 1927. He is considered by many to be one of the greatest authors.[2][3]
Marcel Proust: A Writer's Life - Documentary Clip, 2:31
This engrossing documentary traces the life of French writer Marcel Proust, considered by many to be the greatest novelist of the 20th century. Filmed on location in France, the film depicts Proust's struggle to create his 3,000-page masterpiece, "Remembrance of Things Past", the groundbreaking novel that has come to epitomize a genre. With dramatic re-enactments of key scenes from Proust's life, and with rare archival footage that brings to life the rich period of French history from 1870 to 1925, A WRITER'S LIFE shows how, after years of failure and bad luck, Proust finally found the key to his art - and the will to undertake what is perhaps the most ambitious novel ever conceived.
Clip from Marcel Proust: A Writer's Life; promotional release for the 100th anniversary publication of In Search of Lost Time, Volume 1, used with permission.
https://youtu.be/_B99TZblScA
READINGS
35.1 from Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Charge of the Light Brigade” (1854) 1145
35.2 Wilfred Owen, “Dulce et Decorum Est” (1918) 1146
35.3 from Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front (1928) 1146
35.4 William Butler Yeats, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” (1893) 1147
35.5 William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming” (1919) 1147
35.6 from T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land, Part 3, “The Fire Sermon” (1921) 1169
In the first episode of a four-part series, "Mud" traces the roots of the residential highrise, from the biblical Tower of Babel to New York's tenement buildings.
Click here for the interactive documentary: http://nyti.ms/17DuB6Y
Subscribe to the Times Video newsletter for free and get a handpicked selection of the best videos from The New York Times every week: http://bit.ly/timesvideonewsletter
Subscribe on YouTube: http://bit.ly/U8Ys7n
Watch more videos at: http://nytimes.com/video
Check out our 1920s workbook here: http://www.amazon.com/Roaring-Twentie...
The following video provides a brief description of the Harlem Renaissance and the impact it had on society.
Throughout the 1920s, Harlem experienced a cultural and intellectual explosion that became known as the Harlem Renaissance. Who was involved in the Harlem Renaissance? What was its ultimate impact?
This video is about the new negro movment of the 1920s. It is commonly called The Harlem Renaissance. It was based out of Harlem New York, in New York City, USA. This was a project done for Mrs. Lewis's 4th period poetry slam class. It was done so that we can share with the world a short documentary that makes sense.
Langston Hughes was the leading voice of the Harlem Renaissance, whose poetry showcased the dignity and beauty in ordinary black life. The hours he spent in Harlem clubs affected his work, making him one of the innovators of Jazz Poetry.
Subscribe for more Mini Bios: http://bit.ly/1avbyjK
Find out why the pen is mightier than the sword in our Writers playlist: http://bit.ly/1kj7GYl
From pianists to presidents, learn it all in our Mini Bios playlist: http://bit.ly/1dM6ts3
Check out more bios and full episodes:
http://bit.ly/1ebOUOC
Like the official Biography Channel Facebook page:
http://on.fb.me/1g3yj3U
Follow Biography Channel on Twitter:
http://bit.ly/1ar0RNv
Check out exclusive content on Google :
http://bit.ly/163BpLz
Don't miss out on great merchandise:
http://bit.ly/GIrftp
Biography
bio.® believes that the truth is more entertaining than fiction. True stories matter more to us because they happen to real people. We dig deep to find the most gripping, surprising and amazing stories. Whether it's a biopic, documentary, talk show or non-fiction series, BIO. delivers an honest portrayal of stories that will leave you amazed. BIO. True Story.™
https://youtu.be/inP76rkYUso
Zora Neale Hurston and the Voices of Folklore 1176
To watch the entire documentary, to read background information and to order DVDs, visit:
http://newsreel.org/video/ZORA-NEALE-...
This definitive film biography portrays Zora Neale Hurston in all her complexity: gifted, flamboyant, and controversial but always fiercely original.
Skyscraper and Machine: Architecture in New York 1181
New York City's Skyscrapers | Building America, 2:33
Manhattan: A city confined to an island. The only way to build out, was to build up. Hear the story of how New York City's skyscrapers were born on Building America, narrated by Mike Rowe, 12/4, 8PM ET. Watch here http://www.theblaze.com/tv
https://youtu.be/ArX2SB8hHeA
The Machine Aesthetic 1182
The International Style 1184
Making It New: The Art of Place 1187
The New American Novel and Its Tragic Sense of Place 1187
This short documentary looks at the life and work of Eugene O'Neill, and why he is one of the most celebrated playwrights of the 20th century.
Featured in this video: Professor Sarah Churchwell (American Literature, University of East Anglia), Dr Adriano Rabelo (Lecturer in Brazilian Portugese Language and Culture)
Music by Michael Bruce
Find out more about the National Theatre's current production of Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude: http://bit.ly/12MR8S1
Discover more about the art of making theatre with the National Theatre:
http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/dis...
Bookshop: http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/boo...
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/nationaltheatre
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/national.thea...
iTunes: http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/itunes
TES: http://www.tes.co.uk/nationaltheatre
SoundCloud: http://www.soundcloud.com/nationalthe..
The Factory Scene From Chaplin's Last Silent Film "Modern Times".
https://youtu.be/DfGs2Y5WJ14
History
Early history and development
In 1853, one adobe hut stood in Nopalera (Nopal field), named for the Mexican Nopal cactus indigenous to the area. By 1870, an agricultural community flourished. The area was known as the Cahuenga Valley, after the pass in the Santa Monica Mountains immediately to the north.
There are differing opinions as to the true origin of the name "Hollywood." According to the diary of H. J. Whitley,
known as the "Father of Hollywood", on his honeymoon in 1886 he stood
at the top of the hill looking out over the valley. Along came a Chinese
man in a wagon carrying wood. The man got out of the wagon and bowed.
The Chinese man was asked what he was doing and replied, "I holly-wood",
meaning 'hauling wood.' HJ Whitley had an epiphany and decided to name
his new town Hollywood. Holly would represent England and wood would
represent his Scottish heritage. Whitley had already started over 100
towns across the western United States. [5][6] The name is also a reference to the Toyon, a native plant with bright red winter berries that resemble holly.[7]
Originally the name "Figwood" was to be used to name the area due to
the surrounding number of fig trees. Whitley arranged to buy the
500-acre (2.0 km2) E.C. Hurd ranch and disclosed to him his
plans for the land. They agreed on a price and Hurd agreed to sell at a
later date. Before Whitley got off the ground with Hollywood, plans for
the new town had spread to General Harrison Gray Otis, Hurd's wife, eastern adjacent ranch co-owner Daeida Wilcox, and others.
An
alternate derivation for the name comes from histories on Hollywood,
Illinois (now part of Brookfield, IL) and Hollywood, Florida. Mrs.
Wilcox was said to have met a woman on a train trip to the East. The
woman told Mrs. Wilcox about her lovely ranch in Hollywood, Illinois.
Mrs. Wilcox was said to be so enamored of the name that she appropriated
it for the property she and her husband Harvey were planning in the
Cahuenga Valley, as it was then known. Further research yielded that a
parcel of land in Illinois was, in fact named Hollywood and was owned by
John D. Rockefeller and his wife, Laura. When their fourth daughter
Edith married Harold McCormick, heir to the farming equipment fortune in
1895, John D. and Laura Rockefeller gifted the ranch to her. The lower
part of the area known as Hollywood was purchased by a Samuel Gross in
1893 who subdivided the property for housing and development. Mrs.
McCormick donated her parcel of Hollywood to the Cook County Forest
Preserve District for development as a zoological garden in 1919 and it
is now the Brookfield Zoo. Often this story is repeated as Mrs. Wilcox
having met Mrs. McCormick, but as the Wilcoxes filed the name with the
City of Los Angeles in 1887. when Mrs. McCormick was but 15, the woman
Mrs. Wilcox met was her mother, Mrs. Rockefeller, who owned the property
with her husband, John D. Rockefeller.[8][9]
Glen-Holly Hotel, first hotel in Hollywood, at the corner of what is now Yucca Street. It was built in the 1890s.
Daeida Wilcox may have learned of the name Hollywood from Ivar Weid, her neighbor in Holly Canyon (now Lake Hollywood) and a prominent investor and friend of Whitley's.[10][11] She recommended the same name to her husband, Harvey. H. Wilcox.
On August 1887, Wilcox filed a deed and parcel map of property he sold
with the Los Angeles County Recorder's office, named "Hollywood,
California." [12][13]
Wilcox wanted to be the first to record it on a deed. The early
real-estate boom busted that same year, yet Hollywood began its slow
growth.
By 1900, the region had a post office, newspaper, hotel, and two markets. Los Angeles, with a population of 102,479[14] lay 10 miles (16 km) east through the vineyards, barley fields, and citrus groves. A single-track streetcar line
ran down the middle of Prospect Avenue from it, but service was
infrequent and the trip took two hours. The old citrus fruit-packing
house was converted into a livery stable, improving transportation for the inhabitants of Hollywood.
Newspaper advertisement for Hollywood land sales, 1908
The Hollywood Hotel was opened in 1902 by H. J. Whitley,
president of the Los Pacific Boulevard and Development Company. Having
finally acquired the Hurd ranch and subdivided it, Whitley built the
hotel to attract land buyers. Flanking the west side of Highland Avenue, the structure fronted on Prospect Avenue,
which, still a dusty, unpaved road, was regularly graded and graveled.
The hotel was to become internationally known and was the center of the
civic and social life and home of the stars for many years.[15]
Whitley's company developed and sold one of the early residential areas, the Ocean View Tract.[16]
Whitley did much to promote the area. He paid thousands of dollars for
electric lighting, including bringing electricity and building a bank,
as well as a road into the Cahuenga Pass. The lighting ran for several blocks down Prospect Avenue. Whitley's land was centered on Highland Avenue.[17][18]
Incorporation and merger
Hollywood was incorporated as a municipality
on November 14, 1903, by a vote of 88 for and 77 against. On January
30, 1904, the voters in Hollywood decided, by a vote of 113 to 96, for
the banishment of liquor in the city, except when it was being sold for
medicinal purposes. Neither hotels nor restaurants were allowed to serve
wine or liquor before or after meals.[19]
In
1910, the city voted for merger with Los Angeles in order to secure an
adequate water supply and to gain access to the L.A. sewer system. With
annexation, the name of Prospect Avenue changed to Hollywood Boulevard and all the street numbers were also changed.[20]
Motion picture industry
Nestor Studio, Hollywood's first movie studio, 1912
By 1912, major motion-picture companies had set up production near or in Los Angeles.[21] In the early 1900s, most motion picture patents were held by Thomas Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company
in New Jersey, and filmmakers were often sued to stop their
productions. To escape this, filmmakers began moving out west, where
Edison's patents could not be enforced.[22]
Also, the weather was ideal and there was quick access to various
settings. Los Angeles became the capital of the film industry.[23]
Hollywood movie studios, 1922
Director D. W. Griffith was the first to make a motion picture in Hollywood. His 17-minute short film In Old California (1910) was filmed for the Biograph Company.[24][25][26] Although Hollywood banned movie theaters—of which it had none—before annexation that year, Los Angeles had no such restriction.[27] The first film by a Hollywood studio, Nestor Motion Picture Company, was shot on October 26, 1911.[28]
The Whitley home was used as its set, and the unnamed movie was filmed
in the middle of their groves at the corner of Whitley Avenue and
Hollywood Boulevard.[29]
The first studio in Hollywood, the Nestor Company, was established by the New Jersey–based Centaur Company in a roadhouse at 6121 Sunset Boulevard (the corner of Gower), in October 1911.[30] Four major film companies – Paramount, Warner Bros., RKO, and Columbia
– had studios in Hollywood, as did several minor companies and rental
studios. In the 1920s, Hollywood was the fifth largest industry in the
nation.[23]
Hollywood became known as Tinseltown[31] and Movie Biz City because of the glittering image of the movie industry. Hollywood has since become a major center for film study in the United States.
The
name "Hollywood" is often applied to any film or TV production location
within Greater Los Angeles, whether or not it is physically located
within Hollywood. For example, from the time it relocated from New York
in 1972 until its host retired in 1992, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson was announced as being broadcast "from Hollywood" when in truth it originated from a studio facility in Burbank, California. Similarly, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's storied film studio facility, associated with the Golden Age of Hollywood (and today known as Sony Pictures Studios) is actually located in Culver City, a number of miles from Hollywood. Today, only two of the six major film studios are actually based in Los Angeles, and only one of them, Paramount, is still located in Hollywood.[citation needed]
Development
Capitol Records Tower
Hollywood Boulevard from the Dolby Theatre, before 2006
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, mime and title cards.
The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is nearly as
old as film itself, but because of the technical challenges involved,
synchronized dialogue was only made practical in the late 1920s with the
perfection of the Audion amplifier tube and the introduction of the Vitaphone system. (The term silent film is therefore a retronym, that is, a term created to distinguish something retroactively – the descriptor silent used before the late 1920s would have been a redundancy.) After the release of The Jazz Singer in 1927, "talkies" became more and more commonplace. Within a decade, popular widespread production of silent films had ceased.
A September 2013 report by the United States Library of Congress announced that a total of 70% of American silent films are believed to be completely lost.[1]
Roundhay Garden Scene (1888) - World's Oldest Surviving Film - Louis Aime Augustin Le Prince, 1:05
https://youtu.be/nR2r__ZgO5g
The
earliest celluloid film was shot by Louise Le Prince using the Le
Prince single-lens camera made in 1888. It was taken in the garden of
the Whitley family house in Oakwood Grange Road, Roundhay, a suburb of
Leeds, Yorkshire, Great Britain, possibly on October 14, 1888. It shows
Adolphe Le Prince (Le Prince's son), Mrs. Sarah Whitley, (Le Prince's
mother-in-law), Joseph Whitley and Miss Harriet Hartley. The 'actors'
are shown walking around in circles, laughing to themselves and keeping
within the area framed by the camera.
The earliest
precursors of film began with image projection through the use of an
item known as the magic lantern. This utilized a lens, shutter and
persistent light source to project images on glass slides. These slides
used were originally painted, but photographs were used later on after
the technological advent of photography in the nineteenth century.
Interestingly enough, the invention of a practical photography apparatus
only precedes cinema by fifty years.[2]
The
next significant step towards film creation was the development of an
understanding of image movement. Simulations of movement date as far
back as to 1828 and only four years after Paul Roget discovered the
phenomenon he called Persistence of Vision. Roget showed that when a
series of still photographs are shown at a considerable speed in front
of one's eye, the photographs merge into one registered image that
appears to be moving. This experience was further demonstrated through
Roget's introduction of the thaumatrope, a device which spun a disk with
an image on its surface at a fairly high rate of speed.[2]
The first projected primary proto-movie was made by Eadweard Muybridge
sometime between 1877 and 1880. Muybridge set up a row of cameras along
a racetrack and timed image exposures to capture the many stages of a
horse's gallop. The oldest surviving film (of the genera called
pictorial realism) was created by Louis Le Prince in 1888. It was a two-second film of people walking in "Oakwood streets" garden, entitled Roundhay Garden Scene.[3]
The development of Thomas Edison's Kinetograph, a photographic device
that capture sequential images, and his Kinetoscope, a viewing device
for these photos, allowed for the creation and exhibition of short
films. Edison also made a business of selling Kinetograph and
Kinetoscope equipment, which laid the foundation for widespread film
production. [2]
Due
to Edison's lack of securing an international copyright on his film
inventions, similar devices were "invented" around the world. The Lumière brothers
(Louis and Auguste Lumière), for example, created the Cinématographe in
France. The Cinématographe proved to be a more portable and practical
device than both of Edison's as it combined a camera, film processor and
projector in one unit.[2] In contrast to Edison's "peepshow" kinetoscope, the cinematograph allowed simultaneous viewing by multiple parties. Their first film, Sortie de l'usine Lumière de Lyon, shot in 1894, is considered the first true motion picture.[4]
From the very beginnings of film production, the art of motion pictures grew into full maturity in the "silent era" (1894–1929) before silent films were replaced by "talking pictures"
in the late 1920s. Many film scholars and buffs argue that the
aesthetic quality of cinema decreased for several years until directors,
actors, and production staff adapted to the new "talkies".[5]
The
visual quality of silent movies—especially those produced in the
1920s—was often high. However, there is a widely held misconception that
these films were primitive and barely watchable by modern standards.[6]
This misconception comes as a result of silent films being played back
at wrong speed and their deteriorated condition. Many silent films exist
only in second- or third-generation copies, often copied from already
damaged and neglected film stock.[5]
In
addition, many prints may suffer from censorship cuts and missing
frames and scenes, resulting in what may appear to be poor editing.
As
motion pictures eventually increased in length, a replacement was
needed for the in-house interpreter who would explain parts of the film.
Because silent films had no synchronized sound for dialogue, onscreen
intertitles were used to narrate story points, present key dialogue and
sometimes even comment on the action for the cinema audience. The title writer became a key professional in silent film and was often separate from the scenario writer who created the story. Intertitles (or titles
as they were generally called at the time) often became graphic
elements themselves, featuring illustrations or abstract decoration that
commented on the action.
Live music and sound
Showings
of silent films almost always featured live music, starting with the
guitarist, at the first public projection of movies by the Lumière Brothers
on December 28, 1895 in Paris. This was furthered in 1896 by the first
motion picture exhibition in the United States at Koster and Bial's
Music Hall in New York City. At this event, Edison set the precedent
that all exhibitions should be accompanied by an orchestra. [7]
From the beginning, music was recognized as essential, contributing to
the atmosphere and giving the audience vital emotional cues. (Musicians
sometimes played on film sets during shooting for similar reasons.)
However, depending on the size of the exhibition site, musical
accompaniment could drastically change in size. [2] Small town and neighborhood movie theatres usually had a pianist. Beginning in the mid-1910s, large city theaters tended to have organists or ensembles of musicians. Massive theater organs
were designed to fill a gap between a simple piano soloist and a larger
orchestra. Theatre organs had a wide range of special effects;
theatrical organs such as the famous "Mighty Wurlitzer" could simulate some orchestral sounds along with a number of percussion effects such as bass drums and cymbals and sound effects ranging from galloping horses to rolling rain. Film scores for early silent films were either improvised
or compiled of classical or theatrical repertory music. Once full
features became commonplace, however, music was compiled from photoplay music by the pianist, organist, orchestra conductor or the movie studio
itself, which included a cue sheet with the film. These sheets were
often lengthy, with detailed notes about effects and moods to watch for.
Starting with the mostly original score composed by Joseph Carl Breil for D. W. Griffith's groundbreaking epic The Birth of a Nation
(USA, 1915) it became relatively common for the biggest-budgeted films
to arrive at the exhibiting theater with original, specially composed
scores.[8] However, the first designated full blown scores were composed earlier, in 1908, by Camille Saint-Saëns, for The Assassination of the Duke of Guise,[9] and by Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, for Stenka Razin.
When
organists or pianists used sheet music, they still might add
improvisational flourishes to heighten the drama on screen. Even when
special effects were not indicated in the score, if an organist was
playing a theater organ capable of an unusual sound effect, such as a
"galloping horses" effect, it would be used for dramatic horseback
chases.
By the height of the silent era, movies were the single
largest source of employment for instrumental musicians (at least in
America). But the introduction of talkies, which happened simultaneously
with the onset of the Great Depression, was devastating to many musicians.
Some countries devised other ways of bringing sound to silent films. The early cinema of Brazil featured fitas cantatas: filmed operettas with singers performing behind the screen.[10] In Japan, films had not only live music but also the benshi, a live narrator who provided commentary and character voices. The benshi became a central element in Japanese film, as well as providing translation for foreign (mostly American) movies.[11] The popularity of the benshi was one reason why silent films persisted well into the 1930s in Japan.
The Americanization of a Medium 1200
The Studios and the Star System 1201
Audience and Expectation: Hollywood’s Genres 1202
Cinema in Europe 1202
READINGS
36.1 from W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903) 1174
36.2 Claude McKay, “If We Must Die” (1919) 1174
36.3 from Alain Leroy Locke, The New Negro (1925) 1175
36.4 Countee Cullen, “Heritage” (1925) 1207
36.5 Langston Hughes, Selected Poems 1208
36.5a from Langston Hughes, “Jazz Band in a Parisian Cabaret” (1925) 1176
36.6 from James Weldon Johnson, “The Prodigal Son” (1927) 1180
36.7a–b from F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925) 1187–1188
36.8 from Ernest Hemingway, “Big Two-Hearted River” (1925) 1188
36.9 from William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (1929) 1189
36.10 William Carlos Williams, “The Red Wheelbarrow,” from Spring and All (1923) 1190
36.11 E.E. Cummings, “she being Brand” (1926) 1191
36.12 from Hart Crane, The Bridge, “To Brooklyn Bridge” (1930) 1191
36.13 from William Carlos Williams, The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams (1948) 1195
FEATURES
CLOSER LOOK Williams’s “The Great Figure” and Demuth’s The Figure 5 in Gold 1192
Times of Despair and Rebirth: The birth of blues and jazz along with America being tried by fire.
The Harlem Renaissance! 2:05
https://youtu.be/JhPd1WY5cFs
A brief introduction on the Harlem Renaissance.
The song is Billie Holiday- What is this thing called love?
The Harlem Renaissance was a movement that spanned the 1920s. During the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke.
The Movement also included the new African-American cultural
expressions across the urban areas in the Northeast and Midwest United
States affected by the Great Migration (African American),[1] of which Harlem was the largest. The Harlem Renaissance was considered to be a rebirth of African American arts.[2] Though it was centered in the Harlem neighborhood of the borough of Manhattan in New York City, in addition, many francophone black writers from African and Caribbean colonies who lived in Paris were also influenced by the Harlem Renaissance.[3][4][5][6]
The Harlem Renaissance is generally considered to have spanned from about 1918 until the mid-1930s.[7] Many of its ideas lived on much longer. The zenith of this "flowering of Negro literature", as James Weldon Johnson preferred to call the Harlem Renaissance, took place between 1924 (when Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life hosted a party for black writers where many white publishers were in attendance) and 1929 (the year of the stock market crash and the beginning of the Great Depression).
Background
Until the end of the Civil War, the majority of African Americans had been enslaved and lived in the South.
After the end of slavery, the emancipated African Americans, freedmen,
began to strive for civic participation, political equality and economic
and cultural self-determination. Soon after the end of the Civil War
the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 gave rise to speeches by African-American Congressmen addressing this Bill. By 1875 sixteen blacks had been elected and served in Congress and gave numerous speeches
with their newfound civil empowerment. The Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 was
renounced by black Congressmen and resulted in the passage of Civil
Rights Act of 1875, part of Reconstruction legislation by Republicans. By the late 1870s, Democratic
whites managed to regain power in the South. From 1890 to 1908 they
proceeded to pass legislation that disenfranchised most Negros and many
poor whites, trapping them without representation. They established white supremacist regimes of Jim Crow segregation in the South and one-party block voting behind southern Democrats.
The Democratic whites denied African Americans their exercise of civil
and political rights by terrorizing black communities with lynch mobs
and other forms of vigilante violence[8]
as well as by instituting a convict labor system that forced many
thousands of African Americans back into unpaid labor in mines, on
plantations, and on public works projects such as roads and levees.
Convict laborers were typically subject to brutal forms of corporal
punishment, overwork, and disease from unsanitary conditions. Death
rates were extraordinarily high.[9] While a small number of blacks were able to acquire land shortly after the Civil War, most were exploited as sharecroppers.[10] As life in the South became increasingly difficult, African Americans began to migrate north in great numbers.
Most of the African-American literary movement arose from a generation that had lived through the gains and losses of Reconstruction after the American Civil War.
Sometimes their parents or grandparents had been slaves. Their
ancestors had sometimes benefited by paternal investment in cultural
capital, including better-than-average education. Many in the Harlem
Renaissance were part of the Great Migration out of the South into the Negro neighborhoods of the North and Midwest.
African–Americans sought a better standard of living and relief from
the institutionalized racism in the South. Others were people of African
descent from racially stratified communities in the Caribbean who came to the United States hoping for a better life. Uniting most of them was their convergence in Harlem.
Contemporary silent black and white short documentary on the Negro Artist. Richmond Barthé working on Kalombwan, (1934).
During
the early portion of the 20th century, Harlem was the destination for
immigrants from around the country, attracting both people seeking work
from the South, and an educated class who made the area a center of
culture, as well as a growing "Negro" middle class. The district had
originally been developed in the 19th century as an exclusive suburb for
the white middle and upper middle classes; its affluent beginnings led
to the development of stately houses, grand avenues, and world-class
amenities such as the Polo Grounds and the Harlem Opera House.
During the enormous influx of European immigrants in the late 19th
century, the once exclusive district was abandoned by the white middle
class, who moved further north.
Harlem became an African-American
neighborhood in the early 1900s. In 1910, a large block along 135th
Street and Fifth Avenue was bought by various African-American realtors
and a church group. Many more African–Americans arrived during the First World War.
Due to the war, the migration of laborers from Europe virtually ceased,
while the war effort resulted in a massive demand for unskilled
industrial labor. The Great Migration brought hundreds of thousands of African Americans to cities such as Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, and New York.
Despite
the increasing popularity of Negro culture, virulent white racism,
often by more recent ethnic immigrants, continued to affect
African-American communities, even in the North. After the end of World
War I, many African-American soldiers—who fought in segregated units
such as the Harlem Hellfighters—came home to a nation whose citizens often did not respect their accomplishments. Race riots and other civil uprisings occurred throughout the US during the Red Summer of 1919, reflecting economic competition over jobs and housing in many cities, as well as tensions over social territories.
Mainstream recognition of Harlem culture
The first stage of the Harlem Renaissance started in the late 1910s. In 1917, the premiere of Three Plays for a Negro Theatre took place. These plays, written by white playwright Ridgely Torrence, featured African-American actors conveying complex human emotions and yearnings. They rejected the stereotypes of the blackface and minstrel show traditions. James Weldon Johnson
in 1917 called the premieres of these plays "the most important single
event in the entire history of the Negro in the American Theater".[11] Another landmark came in 1919, when the poet Claude McKay
published his militant sonnet, "If We Must Die," which introduced a
dramatically political dimension to the themes of African cultural
inheritance and modern urban experience featured in his 1917 poems
"Invocation" and "Harlem Dancer" (published under the pseudonym Eli
Edwards, these were his first appearance in print in the United States
after immigrating from Jamaica).[12]
Although "If We Must Die" never alluded to race, African-American
readers heard its note of defiance in the face of racism and the
nationwide race riots and lynchings
then taking place. By the end of the First World War, the fiction of
James Weldon Johnson and the poetry of Claude McKay were describing the
reality of contemporary African-American life in America.
In 1917 Hubert Harrison, "The Father of Harlem Radicalism", founded the Liberty League and The Voice,
the first organization and the first newspaper, respectively, of the
"New Negro Movement". Harrison's organization and newspaper were
political, but also emphasized the arts (his newspaper had "Poetry for
the People" and book review sections). In 1927, in the Pittsburgh Courier,
Harrison challenged the notion of the renaissance. He argued that the
"Negro Literary Renaissance" notion overlooked "the stream of literary
and artistic products which had flowed uninterruptedly from Negro
writers from 1850 to the present", and said the so-called "renaissance"
was largely a white invention.
The Harlem Renaissance grew out of
the changes that had taken place in the African-American community
since the abolition of slavery, as the expansion of communities in the
North. These accelerated as a consequence of World War I
and the great social and cultural changes in early 20th-century United
States. Industrialization was attracting people to cities from rural
areas and gave rise to a new mass culture. Contributing factors leading
to the Harlem Renaissance were the Great Migration of African Americans
to northern cities, which concentrated ambitious people in places where
they could encourage each other, and the First World War, which had
created new industrial work opportunities for tens of thousands of
people. Factors leading to the decline of this era include the Great Depression.
Religion
Christianity
played a major role in the Harlem Renaissance. Many of the writers and
social critics discussed the role of Christianity in African–American
lives. For example, a famous poem by Langston Hughes, "Madam and the Minister", reflects the temperature and mood towards religion in the Harlem Renaissance.[13] The cover story for the Crisis Magazine′s
publication in May 1936 explains how important Christianity was
regarding the proposed union of the three largest Methodist churches of
1936. This article shows the controversial question about the formation
of a Union for these churches.[14] The article "The Catholic Church and the Negro Priest", also published in the Crisis Magazine,
January 1920, demonstrates the obstacles African–American priests faced
in the Catholic Church. The article confronts what it saw as policies
based on race that excluded African–Americans from higher positions in
the church.[15]
Discourse
Religion and Evolution Ad
Various
forms of religious worship existed during this time of African–American
intellectual reawakening. Although there were racist attitudes within
the current Abrahamic religious
arenas many African–Americans continued to push towards the practice of
a more inclusive doctrine. For example, George Joseph MacWilliam
presents various experiences, during his pursuit towards priesthood, of
rejection on the basis of his color and race yet he shares his
frustration in attempts to incite action on part of The Crisis Magazine
community.[16]
There
were other forms of spiritualism practiced among African–Americans
during the Harlem Renaissance. Some of these religions and philosophies
were inherited from African ancestry.
For example, the religion of Islam traded in slaves from Africa as early as the 8th century through the Trans-Saharan trade. Islam came to Harlem likely through the migration of members of the Moorish Science Temple of America, which was established in 1913 in New Jersey.
Various forms of Judaism were practiced, such as Orthodox Judaism and Masorti Judaism and even Reformed Judaism, but it was Black Hebrew Israelites that founded their religious belief system during the late 20th century in the Harlem Renaissance.
Traditional
forms of religion acquired from various parts of Africa were inherited
and practiced during this era. Some commons examples were Voodoo and Santeria.
Criticism
"An' the stars began to fall." by Aaron Douglas
Religious
critique during this era was found in literature, art, and poetry. The
Harlem Renaissance encouraged analytic dialogue that included the open
critique and the adjustment of current religious ideas.
One of the major contributors to the discussion of African–American renaissance culture was Aaron Douglas
who, with his artwork, also reflected the revisions African Americans
were making to the Christian dogma. Douglas uses biblical imagery as
inspiration to various pieces of art work but with the rebellious twist
of an African influence.[17] Countee Cullen’s
poem “Heritage” expresses the inner struggle of an African American
between his past African heritage and the new Christian culture.[18] A more severe criticism of the Christian religion can be found Langston Hughes’
poem “Merry Christmas", where he exposes the irony of religion as a
symbol for good and yet a force for oppression and injustice.[19]
Music
A new way of playing the piano called the Harlem Stride style
was created during the Harlem Renaissance, and helped blur the lines
between the poor Negroes and socially elite Negroes. The traditional jazz
band was composed primarily of brass instruments and was considered a
symbol of the south, but the piano was considered an instrument of the
wealthy. With this instrumental modification to the existing genre, the
wealthy blacks now had more access to jazz music. Its popularity soon
spread throughout the country and was consequently at an all-time high.
Innovation and liveliness were important characteristics of performers
in the beginnings of jazz. Jazz musicians at the time such as Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton, and Willie "The Lion" Smith were very talented and competitive, and were considered to have laid the foundation for future musicians of their genre.[20][21]
Duke Ellington gained popularity during the Harlem Renaissance.
According to Charles Garrett, "The resulting portrait of Ellington
reveals him to be not only the gifted composer, bandleader, and musician
we have come to know, but also an earthly person with basic desires,
weaknesses, and eccentricities." [22] Ellington didn't let his popularity get to him. He remained calm and focused on his music.
During
this period, the musical style of blacks was becoming more and more
attractive to whites. White novelists, dramatists and composers started
to exploit the musical tendencies and themes of African–Americans in
their works. Composers used poems written by African-American poets in
their songs, and would implement the rhythms, harmonies and melodies of
African-American music—such as blues, spirituals, and jazz—into their concert pieces. Negroes began to merge with Whites into the classical world of musical composition. The first Negro male to gain wide recognition as a concert artist in both his region and internationally was Roland Hayes. He trained with Arthur Calhoun in Chattanooga, and at Fisk University in Nashville. Later, he studied with Arthur Hubbard in Boston and with George Henschel and Amanda Ira Aldridge in London, England. He began singing in public as a student, and toured with the Fisk Jubilee Singers in 1911.[23]
Fashion
During
the Harlem Renaissance, Black America’s clothing scene took a dramatic
turn from the prim and proper. Many young women preferred extreme
versions of current white fashions - from short skirts and silk
stockings to drop-waisted dresses and cloche hats.[24] The extraordinarily successful black dancer Josephine Baker,
though performing in Paris during the height of the Renaissance, was a
major fashion trendsetter for black and white women alike. Her gowns
from the couturier Jean Patou were much copied, especially her stage costumes, which Vogue magazine called "startling." [25]
Popular by the 1930s was a trendy, egret-trimmed beret. Men wore loose
suits that led to the later style known as the "Zoot," which consisted
of wide-legged, high-waisted, peg-top trousers, and a long coat with
padded shoulders and wide lapels. Men also wore wide-brimmed hats,
colored socks,[26] white gloves, and velvet-collared Chesterfield coats.
During this period, African Americans expressed respect for their
heritage through a fad for leopard-skin coats, indicating the power of
the African animal.
Characteristics and themes
Characterizing the Harlem Renaissance was an overt racial pride that came to be represented in the idea of the New Negro, who through intellect and production of literature, art, and music could challenge the pervading racism and stereotypes to promote progressive or socialist politics, and racial and social integration. The creation of art and literature would serve to "uplift" the race.
There
would be no uniting form singularly characterizing the art that emerged
from the Harlem Renaissance. Rather, it encompassed a wide variety of
cultural elements and styles, including a Pan-African
perspective, "high-culture" and "low-culture" or "low-life," from the
traditional form of music to the blues and jazz, traditional and new
experimental forms in literature such as modernism and the new form of jazz poetry.
This duality meant that numerous African-American artists came into
conflict with conservatives in the black intelligentsia, who took issue
with certain depictions of black life.
Some common themes
represented during the Harlem Renaissance were the influence of the
experience of slavery and emerging African-American folk traditions on
black identity, the effects of institutional racism, the dilemmas
inherent in performing and writing for elite white audiences, and the
question of how to convey the experience of modern black life in the
urban North.
The Harlem Renaissance was one of primarily
African-American involvement. It rested on a support system of black
patrons, black-owned businesses and publications. However, it also
depended on the patronage of white Americans, such as Carl Van Vechten and Charlotte Osgood Mason,
who provided various forms of assistance, opening doors which otherwise
would have remained closed to the publication of work outside the black
American community. This support often took the form of patronage or publication.
Carl Van Vechten was one of the most notorious white Americans involved
with the Harlem Renaissance. He allowed for assistance to the black
American community because he wanted racial sameness.
There were other whites interested in so-called "primitive"
cultures, as many whites viewed black American culture at that time,
and wanted to see such "primitivism" in the work coming out of the
Harlem Renaissance. As with most fads, some people may have been
exploited in the rush for publicity.
Interest in African-American
lives also generated experimental but lasting collaborative work, such
as the all-black productions of George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess, and Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein's Four Saints in Three Acts. In both productions the choral conductor Eva Jessye was part of the creative team. Her choir was featured in Four Saints.[27]
The music world also found white band leaders defying racist attitudes
to include the best and the brightest African-American stars of music
and song in their productions.
The African Americans used art to prove their humanity and demand for equality.
The Harlem Renaissance led to more opportunities for blacks to be
published by mainstream houses. Many authors began to publish novels,
magazines and newspapers during this time. The new fiction attracted a
great amount of attention from the nation at large. Among authors who
became nationally known were Jean Toomer, Jessie Fauset, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, James Weldon Johnson, Alain Locke, Omar Al Amiri, Eric D. Walrond and Langston Hughes.
The Harlem Renaissance helped lay the foundation for the post-World War II phase of the Civil Rights Movement. Moreover, many black artists who rose to creative maturity afterward were inspired by this literary movement.
The
Renaissance was more than a literary or artistic movement, as it
possessed a certain sociological development—particularly through a new
racial consciousness—through ethnic pride, as seen in the Back to Africa movement led by Marcus Garvey. At the same time, a different expression of ethnic pride, promoted by W. E. B. Du Bois, introduced the notion of the "talented tenth":
those Negroes who were fortunate enough to inherit money or property or
obtain a college degree during the transition from Reconstruction to
the Jim Crow
period of the early twentieth century. These "talented tenth" were
considered the finest examples of the worth of black Americans as a
response to the rampant racism of the period. (No particular leadership
was assigned to the talented tenth, but they were to be emulated.) In
both literature and popular discussion, complex ideas such as Du Bois's
concept of "twoness" (dualism) were introduced (seeThe Souls of Black Folk (1903).[28]
Du Bois explored a divided awareness of one's identity that was a
unique critique of the social ramifications of racial consciousness.
This exploration was later revived during the Black Pride movement of the early 1970s.
"Sometimes
I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely
astonishes me. How can anyone deny themselves the pleasure of my
company? It's beyond me." - Zora Neale Hurston[29]
The Harlem Renaissance was successful in that it brought the Black experience clearly within the corpus of Americancultural history. Not only through an explosion of culture, but on a sociological
level, the legacy of the Harlem Renaissance redefined how America, and
the world, viewed African–Americans. The migration of southern Blacks to
the north changed the image of the African–American from rural,
undereducated peasants to one of urban, cosmopolitan sophistication.
This new identity led to a greater social consciousness, and
African–Americans became players on the world stage, expanding
intellectual and social contacts internationally.
The
progress—both symbolic and real—during this period became a point of
reference from which the African-American community gained a spirit of self-determination that provided a growing sense of both Black urbanity and Black militancy, as well as a foundation for the community to build upon for the Civil Rights struggles in the 1950s and 1960s.
The
urban setting of rapidly developing Harlem provided a venue for African
Americans of all backgrounds to appreciate the variety of Black life
and culture. Through this expression, the Harlem Renaissance encouraged
the new appreciation of folk roots and culture. For instance, folk
materials and spirituals provided a rich source for the artistic and
intellectual imagination, which freed Blacks from the establishment of
past condition. Through sharing in these cultural experiences, a
consciousness sprung forth in the form of a united racial identity.
Criticism of the movement
Many critics point out that the Harlem Renaissance could not escape its history and culture
in its attempt to create a new one, or sufficiently separate from the
foundational elements of White, European culture. Often Harlem
intellectuals, while proclaiming a new racial consciousness,
resorted to mimicry of their white counterparts by adopting their
clothing, sophisticated manners and etiquette. This "mimicry" may also
be called assimilation,
as that is typically what minority members of any social construct must
do in order to fit social norms created by that construct's majority.
This could be seen as a reason that the artistic and cultural products
of the Harlem Renaissance did not overcome the presence of
White-American values, and did not reject these values. In this regard,
the creation of the "New Negro" as the Harlem intellectuals sought, was
considered a success.
The Harlem Renaissance appealed to a mixed audience. The literature appealed to the African-Americanmiddle class and to whites. Magazines such as The Crisis, a monthly journal of the NAACP, and Opportunity, an official publication of the National Urban League,
employed Harlem Renaissance writers on their editorial staffs;
published poetry and short stories by black writers; and promoted
African-American literature through articles, reviews, and annual
literary prizes. As important as these literary outlets were, however,
the Renaissance relied heavily on white publishing houses and
white-owned magazines. A major accomplishment of the Renaissance was to
open the door to mainstream white periodicals and publishing houses,
although the relationship between the Renaissance writers and white
publishers and audiences created some controversy. W. E. B. Du Bois did not oppose the relationship between black writers and white publishers, but he was critical of works such as Claude McKay's bestselling novelHome to Harlem (1928) for appealing to the "prurient demand[s]" of white readers and publishers for portrayals of black "licentiousness".[30]
Langston Hughes spoke for most of the writers and artists when he wrote
in his essay "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" (1926) that
black artists intended to express themselves freely, no matter what the
black public or white public thought.[31]
In Langston Hughes' writings, he also returned to the theme of racial
passing, but during the Harlem Renaissance, he began to explore the
topic of homosexuality and homophobia. He began to use disruptive
language in his writings. He explored this topic because it was a theme
that during this time period was not discussed.[32]
African-American
musicians and other performers also played to mixed audiences. Harlem's
cabarets and clubs attracted both Harlem residents and white New
Yorkers seeking out Harlem nightlife. Harlem's famous Cotton Club, where Duke Ellington
performed, carried this to an extreme, by providing black entertainment
for exclusively white audiences. Ultimately, the more successful black
musicians and entertainers who appealed to a mainstream audience moved
their performances downtown.
Certain aspects of the Harlem
Renaissance were accepted without debate, and without scrutiny. One of
these was the future of the "New Negro". Artists and intellectuals of
the Harlem Renaissance echoed American progressivism
in its faith in democratic reform, in its belief in art and literature
as agents of change, and in its almost uncritical belief in itself and
its future. This progressivist worldview rendered Black
intellectuals—just like their White counterparts—unprepared for the rude
shock of the Great Depression, and the Harlem Renaissance ended abruptly because of naive assumptions about the centrality of culture, unrelated to economic and social realities. Skyscraper Culture
SUPERTALL Introduction Video, 2:47
https://youtu.be/QLviFx0hvAw The Burj Khalifa, in Dubai (United Arab Emirates), has been the tallest skyscraper in the world since 2010, with a height of 829.8 m.
A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of over 40-50 floors, mostly designed for office, commercial and residential uses. A skyscraper can also be called a high-rise,
but the term skyscraper is often used for buildings higher than 150 m
(492 ft). For buildings above a height of 300 m (984 ft), the term Supertall can be used, while skyscrapers reaching beyond 600 m (1,969 ft) are classified as Megatall.[1]
One common feature of skyscrapers is having a steel framework that supports curtain walls. These curtain walls either bear on the framework below or are suspended from the framework above, rather than load-bearing walls of conventional construction. Some early skyscrapers have a steel frame that enables the construction of load-bearing walls taller than of those made of reinforced concrete.
Modern skyscrapers' walls are not load-bearing and most skyscrapers are
characterized by large surface areas of windows made possible by the
concept of steel frame and curtain walls. However, skyscrapers can have
curtain walls that mimic conventional walls and a small surface area of
windows. Modern skyscrapers often have a tubular structure,
and are designed to act like a hollow cylinder to resist lateral loads
(wind, seismic, etc.). To appear more slender, allow less wind exposure
and to transmit more daylight to the ground, many skyscrapers have a
design with setbacks.
History
Early history and development
In 1853, one adobe hut stood in Nopalera (Nopal field), named for the Mexican Nopal cactus indigenous to the area. By 1870, an agricultural community flourished. The area was known as the Cahuenga Valley, after the pass in the Santa Monica Mountains immediately to the north.
There are differing opinions as to the true origin of the name "Hollywood." According to the diary of H. J. Whitley,
known as the "Father of Hollywood", on his honeymoon in 1886 he stood
at the top of the hill looking out over the valley. Along came a Chinese
man in a wagon carrying wood. The man got out of the wagon and bowed.
The Chinese man was asked what he was doing and replied, "I holly-wood",
meaning 'hauling wood.' HJ Whitley had an epiphany and decided to name
his new town Hollywood. Holly would represent England and wood would
represent his Scottish heritage. Whitley had already started over 100
towns across the western United States. [5][6] The name is also a reference to the Toyon, a native plant with bright red winter berries that resemble holly.[7]
Originally the name "Figwood" was to be used to name the area due to
the surrounding number of fig trees. Whitley arranged to buy the
500-acre (2.0 km2) E.C. Hurd ranch and disclosed to him his
plans for the land. They agreed on a price and Hurd agreed to sell at a
later date. Before Whitley got off the ground with Hollywood, plans for
the new town had spread to General Harrison Gray Otis, Hurd's wife, eastern adjacent ranch co-owner Daeida Wilcox, and others.
An
alternate derivation for the name comes from histories on Hollywood,
Illinois (now part of Brookfield, IL) and Hollywood, Florida. Mrs.
Wilcox was said to have met a woman on a train trip to the East. The
woman told Mrs. Wilcox about her lovely ranch in Hollywood, Illinois.
Mrs. Wilcox was said to be so enamored of the name that she appropriated
it for the property she and her husband Harvey were planning in the
Cahuenga Valley, as it was then known. Further research yielded that a
parcel of land in Illinois was, in fact named Hollywood and was owned by
John D. Rockefeller and his wife, Laura. When their fourth daughter
Edith married Harold McCormick, heir to the farming equipment fortune in
1895, John D. and Laura Rockefeller gifted the ranch to her. The lower
part of the area known as Hollywood was purchased by a Samuel Gross in
1893 who subdivided the property for housing and development. Mrs.
McCormick donated her parcel of Hollywood to the Cook County Forest
Preserve District for development as a zoological garden in 1919 and it
is now the Brookfield Zoo. Often this story is repeated as Mrs. Wilcox
having met Mrs. McCormick, but as the Wilcoxes filed the name with the
City of Los Angeles in 1887. when Mrs. McCormick was but 15, the woman
Mrs. Wilcox met was her mother, Mrs. Rockefeller, who owned the property
with her husband, John D. Rockefeller.[8][9]
Glen-Holly Hotel, first hotel in Hollywood, at the corner of what is now Yucca Street. It was built in the 1890s.
Daeida Wilcox may have learned of the name Hollywood from Ivar Weid, her neighbor in Holly Canyon (now Lake Hollywood) and a prominent investor and friend of Whitley's.[10][11] She recommended the same name to her husband, Harvey. H. Wilcox.
On August 1887, Wilcox filed a deed and parcel map of property he sold
with the Los Angeles County Recorder's office, named "Hollywood,
California." [12][13]
Wilcox wanted to be the first to record it on a deed. The early
real-estate boom busted that same year, yet Hollywood began its slow
growth.
By 1900, the region had a post office, newspaper, hotel, and two markets. Los Angeles, with a population of 102,479[14] lay 10 miles (16 km) east through the vineyards, barley fields, and citrus groves. A single-track streetcar line
ran down the middle of Prospect Avenue from it, but service was
infrequent and the trip took two hours. The old citrus fruit-packing
house was converted into a livery stable, improving transportation for the inhabitants of Hollywood.
Newspaper advertisement for Hollywood land sales, 1908
The Hollywood Hotel was opened in 1902 by H. J. Whitley,
president of the Los Pacific Boulevard and Development Company. Having
finally acquired the Hurd ranch and subdivided it, Whitley built the
hotel to attract land buyers. Flanking the west side of Highland Avenue, the structure fronted on Prospect Avenue,
which, still a dusty, unpaved road, was regularly graded and graveled.
The hotel was to become internationally known and was the center of the
civic and social life and home of the stars for many years.[15]
Whitley's company developed and sold one of the early residential areas, the Ocean View Tract.[16]
Whitley did much to promote the area. He paid thousands of dollars for
electric lighting, including bringing electricity and building a bank,
as well as a road into the Cahuenga Pass. The lighting ran for several blocks down Prospect Avenue. Whitley's land was centered on Highland Avenue.[17][18]
Incorporation and merger
Hollywood was incorporated as a municipality
on November 14, 1903, by a vote of 88 for and 77 against. On January
30, 1904, the voters in Hollywood decided, by a vote of 113 to 96, for
the banishment of liquor in the city, except when it was being sold for
medicinal purposes. Neither hotels nor restaurants were allowed to serve
wine or liquor before or after meals.[19]
In
1910, the city voted for merger with Los Angeles in order to secure an
adequate water supply and to gain access to the L.A. sewer system. With
annexation, the name of Prospect Avenue changed to Hollywood Boulevard and all the street numbers were also changed.[20]
Motion picture industry
Nestor Studio, Hollywood's first movie studio, 1912
By 1912, major motion-picture companies had set up production near or in Los Angeles.[21] In the early 1900s, most motion picture patents were held by Thomas Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company
in New Jersey, and filmmakers were often sued to stop their
productions. To escape this, filmmakers began moving out west, where
Edison's patents could not be enforced.[22]
Also, the weather was ideal and there was quick access to various
settings. Los Angeles became the capital of the film industry.[23]
Hollywood movie studios, 1922
Director D. W. Griffith was the first to make a motion picture in Hollywood. His 17-minute short film In Old California (1910) was filmed for the Biograph Company.[24][25][26] Although Hollywood banned movie theaters—of which it had none—before annexation that year, Los Angeles had no such restriction.[27] The first film by a Hollywood studio, Nestor Motion Picture Company, was shot on October 26, 1911.[28]
The Whitley home was used as its set, and the unnamed movie was filmed
in the middle of their groves at the corner of Whitley Avenue and
Hollywood Boulevard.[29]
The first studio in Hollywood, the Nestor Company, was established by the New Jersey–based Centaur Company in a roadhouse at 6121 Sunset Boulevard (the corner of Gower), in October 1911.[30] Four major film companies – Paramount, Warner Bros., RKO, and Columbia
– had studios in Hollywood, as did several minor companies and rental
studios. In the 1920s, Hollywood was the fifth largest industry in the
nation.[23]
Hollywood became known as Tinseltown[31] and Movie Biz City because of the glittering image of the movie industry. Hollywood has since become a major center for film study in the United States.
The
name "Hollywood" is often applied to any film or TV production location
within Greater Los Angeles, whether or not it is physically located
within Hollywood. For example, from the time it relocated from New York
in 1972 until its host retired in 1992, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson was announced as being broadcast "from Hollywood" when in truth it originated from a studio facility in Burbank, California. Similarly, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's storied film studio facility, associated with the Golden Age of Hollywood (and today known as Sony Pictures Studios) is actually located in Culver City, a number of miles from Hollywood. Today, only two of the six major film studios are actually based in Los Angeles, and only one of them, Paramount, is still located in Hollywood.[citation needed]
Development
Capitol Records Tower
Hollywood Boulevard from the Dolby Theatre, before 2006
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, mime and title cards.
The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is nearly as
old as film itself, but because of the technical challenges involved,
synchronized dialogue was only made practical in the late 1920s with the
perfection of the Audion amplifier tube and the introduction of the Vitaphone system. (The term silent film is therefore a retronym, that is, a term created to distinguish something retroactively – the descriptor silent used before the late 1920s would have been a redundancy.) After the release of The Jazz Singer in 1927, "talkies" became more and more commonplace. Within a decade, popular widespread production of silent films had ceased.
A September 2013 report by the United States Library of Congress announced that a total of 70% of American silent films are believed to be completely lost.[1]
Roundhay Garden Scene (1888) - World's Oldest Surviving Film - Louis Aime Augustin Le Prince, 1:05
https://youtu.be/nR2r__ZgO5g
The
earliest celluloid film was shot by Louise Le Prince using the Le
Prince single-lens camera made in 1888. It was taken in the garden of
the Whitley family house in Oakwood Grange Road, Roundhay, a suburb of
Leeds, Yorkshire, Great Britain, possibly on October 14, 1888. It shows
Adolphe Le Prince (Le Prince's son), Mrs. Sarah Whitley, (Le Prince's
mother-in-law), Joseph Whitley and Miss Harriet Hartley. The 'actors'
are shown walking around in circles, laughing to themselves and keeping
within the area framed by the camera.
The earliest
precursors of film began with image projection through the use of an
item known as the magic lantern. This utilized a lens, shutter and
persistent light source to project images on glass slides. These slides
used were originally painted, but photographs were used later on after
the technological advent of photography in the nineteenth century.
Interestingly enough, the invention of a practical photography apparatus
only precedes cinema by fifty years.[2]
The
next significant step towards film creation was the development of an
understanding of image movement. Simulations of movement date as far
back as to 1828 and only four years after Paul Roget discovered the
phenomenon he called Persistence of Vision. Roget showed that when a
series of still photographs are shown at a considerable speed in front
of one's eye, the photographs merge into one registered image that
appears to be moving. This experience was further demonstrated through
Roget's introduction of the thaumatrope, a device which spun a disk with
an image on its surface at a fairly high rate of speed.[2]
The first projected primary proto-movie was made by Eadweard Muybridge
sometime between 1877 and 1880. Muybridge set up a row of cameras along
a racetrack and timed image exposures to capture the many stages of a
horse's gallop. The oldest surviving film (of the genera called
pictorial realism) was created by Louis Le Prince in 1888. It was a two-second film of people walking in "Oakwood streets" garden, entitled Roundhay Garden Scene.[3]
The development of Thomas Edison's Kinetograph, a photographic device
that capture sequential images, and his Kinetoscope, a viewing device
for these photos, allowed for the creation and exhibition of short
films. Edison also made a business of selling Kinetograph and
Kinetoscope equipment, which laid the foundation for widespread film
production. [2]
Due
to Edison's lack of securing an international copyright on his film
inventions, similar devices were "invented" around the world. The Lumière brothers
(Louis and Auguste Lumière), for example, created the Cinématographe in
France. The Cinématographe proved to be a more portable and practical
device than both of Edison's as it combined a camera, film processor and
projector in one unit.[2] In contrast to Edison's "peepshow" kinetoscope, the cinematograph allowed simultaneous viewing by multiple parties. Their first film, Sortie de l'usine Lumière de Lyon, shot in 1894, is considered the first true motion picture.[4]
From the very beginnings of film production, the art of motion pictures grew into full maturity in the "silent era" (1894–1929) before silent films were replaced by "talking pictures"
in the late 1920s. Many film scholars and buffs argue that the
aesthetic quality of cinema decreased for several years until directors,
actors, and production staff adapted to the new "talkies".[5]
The
visual quality of silent movies—especially those produced in the
1920s—was often high. However, there is a widely held misconception that
these films were primitive and barely watchable by modern standards.[6]
This misconception comes as a result of silent films being played back
at wrong speed and their deteriorated condition. Many silent films exist
only in second- or third-generation copies, often copied from already
damaged and neglected film stock.[5]
In
addition, many prints may suffer from censorship cuts and missing
frames and scenes, resulting in what may appear to be poor editing.
As
motion pictures eventually increased in length, a replacement was
needed for the in-house interpreter who would explain parts of the film.
Because silent films had no synchronized sound for dialogue, onscreen
intertitles were used to narrate story points, present key dialogue and
sometimes even comment on the action for the cinema audience. The title writer became a key professional in silent film and was often separate from the scenario writer who created the story. Intertitles (or titles
as they were generally called at the time) often became graphic
elements themselves, featuring illustrations or abstract decoration that
commented on the action.
Live music and sound
Showings
of silent films almost always featured live music, starting with the
guitarist, at the first public projection of movies by the Lumière Brothers
on December 28, 1895 in Paris. This was furthered in 1896 by the first
motion picture exhibition in the United States at Koster and Bial's
Music Hall in New York City. At this event, Edison set the precedent
that all exhibitions should be accompanied by an orchestra. [7]
From the beginning, music was recognized as essential, contributing to
the atmosphere and giving the audience vital emotional cues. (Musicians
sometimes played on film sets during shooting for similar reasons.)
However, depending on the size of the exhibition site, musical
accompaniment could drastically change in size. [2] Small town and neighborhood movie theatres usually had a pianist. Beginning in the mid-1910s, large city theaters tended to have organists or ensembles of musicians. Massive theater organs
were designed to fill a gap between a simple piano soloist and a larger
orchestra. Theatre organs had a wide range of special effects;
theatrical organs such as the famous "Mighty Wurlitzer" could simulate some orchestral sounds along with a number of percussion effects such as bass drums and cymbals and sound effects ranging from galloping horses to rolling rain. Film scores for early silent films were either improvised
or compiled of classical or theatrical repertory music. Once full
features became commonplace, however, music was compiled from photoplay music by the pianist, organist, orchestra conductor or the movie studio
itself, which included a cue sheet with the film. These sheets were
often lengthy, with detailed notes about effects and moods to watch for.
Starting with the mostly original score composed by Joseph Carl Breil for D. W. Griffith's groundbreaking epic The Birth of a Nation
(USA, 1915) it became relatively common for the biggest-budgeted films
to arrive at the exhibiting theater with original, specially composed
scores.[8] However, the first designated full blown scores were composed earlier, in 1908, by Camille Saint-Saëns, for The Assassination of the Duke of Guise,[9] and by Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, for Stenka Razin.
When
organists or pianists used sheet music, they still might add
improvisational flourishes to heighten the drama on screen. Even when
special effects were not indicated in the score, if an organist was
playing a theater organ capable of an unusual sound effect, such as a
"galloping horses" effect, it would be used for dramatic horseback
chases.
By the height of the silent era, movies were the single
largest source of employment for instrumental musicians (at least in
America). But the introduction of talkies, which happened simultaneously
with the onset of the Great Depression, was devastating to many musicians.
Some countries devised other ways of bringing sound to silent films. The early cinema of Brazil featured fitas cantatas: filmed operettas with singers performing behind the screen.[10] In Japan, films had not only live music but also the benshi, a live narrator who provided commentary and character voices. The benshi became a central element in Japanese film, as well as providing translation for foreign (mostly American) movies.[11] The popularity of the benshi was one reason why silent films persisted well into the 1930s in Japan.
THE GREAT WAR AND ITS IMPACT
https://blackboard.strayer.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_150634_1%26url%3D
NEW YORK, SKYSCRAPER CULTURE, AND THE JAZZ AGE
https://blackboard.strayer.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_150634_1%26url%3D
EXPLORE ACTIVITY Streaming Live
Chapter 35 (pp. 1163-1166); Chapter 36 (p. 1189), stream of consciousness – background and samples
A
short biography of Bessie Smith, the blues singer who hit the theater
circuit at the age of 18, touring in minstrel shows and cabarets. She
eventually started her own revue, which showcased her distinctive voice
and established Smith as one of the greatest female blues singer to ever
live.
Bessie Smith - Mini Bio, 3:20
A
short biography of Bessie Smith, the blues singer who hit the theater
circuit at the age of 18, touring in minstrel shows and cabarets. She
eventually started her own revue, which showcased her distinctive voice
and established Smith as one of the greatest female blues singer to ever
live. Subscribe for more Mini Bios: http://bit.ly/1avbyjK From pianists
to presidents, learn it all in our Mini Bios playlist:
http://bit.ly/1dM6ts3 Learn about more sultry singers in our Musicians
playlist: http://bit.ly/1dM104s Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) was an American bluessinger.
Nicknamed The Empress of the Blues, Smith was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s.[1] She is often regarded as one of the greatest singers of her era and, along with Louis Armstrong, a major influence on other jazz vocalists.[2]
Life
Portrait of Bessie Smith, 1936
The 1900 census indicates that Bessie Smith was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee,
in July 1892, a date provided by her mother. However, the 1910 census
recorded her birthday as April 15, 1894, a date that appears on all
subsequent documents and was observed by the entire Smith family. Census
data also contribute to controversy about the size of her family. The
1870 and 1880 censuses report three older half-siblings, while later
interviews with Smith's family and contemporaries did not include these
individuals among her siblings.
Bessie Smith was the daughter of Laura (née Owens) and William Smith. William Smith was a laborer and part-time Baptist preacher (he was listed in the 1870 census as a "minister of the gospel", in Moulton, Lawrence, Alabama.)
He died before his daughter could remember him. By the time she was
nine, she had lost her mother and a brother as well. Her older sister
Viola took charge of caring for her siblings.[3]
To earn money for their impoverished household, Bessie Smith and her brother Andrew began busking on the streets of Chattanooga
as a duet: she singing and dancing, he accompanying her on guitar.
Their favorite location was in front of the White Elephant Saloon at
Thirteenth and Elm streets in the heart of the city's African-American
community.
In 1904, her oldest brother, Clarence, covertly left
home, joining a small traveling troupe owned by Moses Stokes. "If Bessie
had been old enough, she would have gone with him," said Clarence's
widow, Maud. "That's why he left without telling her, but Clarence told
me she was ready, even then. Of course, she was only a child."[4]
In
1912, Clarence returned to Chattanooga with the Stokes troupe. He
arranged for its managers, Lonnie and Cora Fisher, to give Smith an
audition. She was hired as a dancer rather than a singer, because the
company also included the unknown singer, Ma Rainey.
Smith eventually moved on to performing in various chorus lines, making
the "81" Theater in Atlanta her home base. There were times when she
worked in shows on the black-owned T.O.B.A. (Theater Owners Booking Association) circuit. She would rise to become its biggest star after signing with Columbia Records.
By
1923, when she began her recording career, Smith had taken up residence
in Philadelphia. There she met and fell in love with Jack Gee, a
security guard whom she married on June 7, 1923, just as her first
record was released. During the marriage—a stormy one, with infidelity
on both sides—Smith became the highest paid black entertainer of the
day, heading her own shows, which sometimes featured as many as 40
troupers, and touring in her own railroad car. Gee was impressed by the
money, but never adjusted to show business life, or to Smith's bisexuality.
In 1929, when she learned of his affair with another singer, Gertrude
Saunders, Bessie Smith ended the relationship, although neither of them
sought a divorce.
Smith eventually found a common-law husband in an old friend, Richard Morgan, who was Lionel Hampton's uncle and the antithesis of her husband. She stayed with him until her death.[3]
Career
Portrait of Bessie Smith by Carl Van Vechten
All
contemporary accounts indicate that while Rainey did not teach Smith to
sing, she probably helped her develop a stage presence.[5] Smith began forming her own act around 1913, at Atlanta's "81" Theater. By 1920, Smith had established a reputation in the South and along the Eastern Seaboard.
In 1920, sales figures of over 100,000 copies for "Crazy Blues," an Okeh Records recording by singer Mamie Smith
(no relation) pointed to a new market. The recording industry had not
directed its product to blacks, but the success of the record led to a
search for female blues singers. Bessie Smith was signed to Columbia Records in 1923 by Frank Walker,
a talent agent who had seen her perform years earlier. Her first
session for Columbia was February 15, 1923. For most of 1923, her
records were issued on Columbia's regular A- series; when the label
decided to establish a "race records" series, Smith's "Cemetery Blues" (September 26, 1923) was the first issued.
She scored a big hit with her first release, a coupling of "Gulf Coast Blues" and "Downhearted Blues", which its composer Alberta Hunter had already turned into a hit on the Paramount label. Smith became a headliner on the black T.O.B.A. circuit and rose to become its top attraction in the 1920s.[6]
Working a heavy theater schedule during the winter months and doing
tent tours the rest of the year (eventually traveling in her own
railroad car), Smith became the highest-paid black entertainer of her
day.[7] Columbia nicknamed her "Queen of the Blues," but a PR-minded press soon upgraded her title to "Empress".
Smith
had a powerfully strong voice that recorded very well from her first
record, made during the time when recordings were made acoustically.
With the coming of electrical recording (her first electrical recording
was "Cake Walking Babies (From Home)" recorded Tuesday, May 5, 1925),[8]
the sheer power of her voice was even more evident. She was also able
to benefit from the new technology of radio broadcasting, even on
stations that were in the segregated south. For example, after giving a
concert for a white-only audience at a local theater in Memphis,
Tennessee, in October 1923, she then performed a late night concert on
station WMC, where her songs were very well received by the radio
audience.[9]
She made 160 recordings for Columbia, often accompanied by the finest musicians of the day, most notably Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Fletcher Henderson, James P. Johnson, Joe Smith, and Charlie Green.
Broadway
Smith's
career was cut short by a combination of the Great Depression, which
nearly put the recording industry out of business, and the advent of
"talkies", which spelled the end for vaudeville. She never stopped
performing, however. While the days of elaborate vaudeville shows were
over, Smith continued touring and occasionally singing in clubs. In
1929, she appeared in a Broadway flop called Pansy, a musical in which top critics said she was the only asset.
Film
In 1929, Smith made her only film appearance, starring in a two-reeler titled St. Louis Blues, based on W. C. Handy's song of the same name. In the film, directed by Dudley Murphy and shot in Astoria, she sings the title song accompanied by members of Fletcher Henderson's orchestra, the Hall Johnson Choir, pianist James P. Johnson and a string section—a musical environment radically different from any found on her recordings.
Swing era
In 1933, John Hammond, who also mentored Billie Holiday,
asked Smith to record four sides for Okeh (which had been acquired by
Columbia Records in 1925). He claimed to have found her in
semi-obscurity, working as a hostess in a speakeasy on Philadelphia's
Ridge Avenue.[10]
Bessie Smith worked at Art's Cafe on Ridge Avenue, but not as a hostess
and not until the summer of 1936. In 1933, when she made the Okeh
sides, Bessie was still touring. Hammond was known for his selective
memory and gratuitous embellishments.[11]
Bessie
Smith was paid a non-royalty fee of $37.50 for each selection and these
Okeh sides, which were her last recordings. Made on November 24, 1933,
they serve as a hint of the transformation she made in her performances
as she shifted her blues artistry into something that fit the "swing era". The relatively modern accompaniment is notable. The band included such swing era musicians as trombonistJack Teagarden, trumpeterFrankie Newton, tenor saxophonistChu Berry, pianist Buck Washington, guitarist Bobby Johnson, and bassistBilly Taylor. Benny Goodman, who happened to be recording with Ethel Waters
in the adjoining studio, dropped by and is barely audible on one
selection. Hammond was not entirely pleased with the results, preferring
to have Smith revisit her old blues groove. "Take Me for a Buggy Ride"
and "Gimme a Pigfoot (And a Bottle of Beer)", both written by Wesley Wilson, continue to be ranked among her most popular recordings.[3]Billie Holiday, who credited Smith as her major influence along with Louis Armstrong, would go on to record her first record for Columbia three days later with the same band personnel.
Death
On September 26, 1937, Smith was critically injured in a car accident while traveling along U.S. Route 61 between Memphis, Tennessee, and Clarksdale, Mississippi.
Her lover, Richard Morgan, was driving and misjudged the speed of a
slow-moving truck ahead of him. Tire marks at the scene suggested that
Morgan tried to avoid the truck by driving around its left side, but he
hit the rear of the truck side-on at high speed. The tailgate of the
truck sheared off the wooden roof of Smith's old Packard. Smith, who was
in the passenger seat, probably with her right arm or elbow out the
window, took the full brunt of the impact. Morgan escaped without
injuries.
The first people on the scene were a Memphis surgeon,
Dr. Hugh Smith (no relation), and his fishing partner Henry Broughton.
In the early 1970s, Dr. Smith gave a detailed account of his experience
to Bessie's biographer Chris Albertson. This is the most reliable
eyewitness testimony about the events surrounding Bessie Smith's death.
After
stopping at the accident scene, Dr. Smith examined Bessie Smith, who
was lying in the middle of the road with obviously severe injuries. He
estimated she had lost about a half-pint of blood, and immediately noted
a major traumatic injury to her right arm; it had been almost
completely severed at the elbow.[12]
But Dr. Smith was emphatic that this arm injury alone did not cause her
death. Although the light was poor, he observed only minor head
injuries. He attributed her death to extensive and severe crush injuries
to the entire right side of her body, consistent with a "sideswipe"
collision.[13]
Broughton
and Dr. Smith moved the singer to the shoulder of the road. Dr. Smith
dressed her arm injury with a clean handkerchief and asked Broughton to
go to a house about 500 feet off the road to call an ambulance.
By
the time Broughton returned approximately 25 minutes later, Bessie
Smith was in shock. Time passed with no sign of the ambulance, so Dr.
Smith suggested that they take her into Clarksdale in his car. He and
Broughton had almost finished clearing the back seat when they heard the
sound of a car approaching at high speed. Dr. Smith flashed his lights
in warning, but the oncoming car failed to stop and plowed into the
doctor's car at full speed. It sent his car careening into Bessie
Smith's overturned Packard, completely wrecking it. The oncoming car
ricocheted off Dr. Smith's car into the ditch on the right, barely
missing Broughton and Bessie Smith.[14]
The
young couple in the new car did not have life-threatening injuries. Two
ambulances arrived on the scene from Clarksdale; one from the black
hospital, summoned by Mr. Broughton, the other from the white hospital,
acting on a report from the truck driver, who had not seen the accident
victims.
Bessie Smith was taken to Clarksdale's G. T. Thomas Afro-American Hospital, where her right arm was amputated.
She died that morning without regaining consciousness. After Smith's
death, an often repeated but now discredited story emerged about the
circumstances; namely, that she had died as a result of having been
refused admission to a "whites only" hospital in Clarksdale. Jazz writer/producer John Hammond gave this account in an article in the November 1937 issue of Down Beat magazine. The circumstances of Smith's death and the rumor promoted by Hammond formed the basis for Edward Albee's 1959 one-act play The Death of Bessie Smith.[15]
"The Bessie Smith ambulance would not have gone to a white hospital, you can forget that." Dr. Smith told Albertson. "Down in the Deep South
cotton country, no ambulance driver, or white driver, would even have
thought of putting a colored person off in a hospital for white folks."[16]
Smith's death certificate
Smith's funeral was held in Philadelphia
a little over a week later on October 4, 1937. Her body was originally
laid out at Upshur's funeral home. As word of her death spread through
Philadelphia's black community, the body had to be moved to the O.V.
Catto Elks Lodge to accommodate the estimated 10,000 mourners who filed
past her coffin on Sunday, October 3.[17]
Contemporary newspapers reported that her funeral was attended by about
seven thousand people. Far fewer mourners attended the burial at Mount
Lawn Cemetery, in nearby Sharon Hill. Gee thwarted all efforts to purchase a stone for his estranged wife, once or twice pocketing money raised for that purpose.[18]
The grave remained unmarked until August 7, 1970, when a tombstone—paid for by singer Janis Joplin and Juanita Green, who as a child had done housework for Smith—was erected.[19] Dory Previn wrote a song of Janis Joplin and the tombstone called "Stone for Bessie Smith" on her album Mythical Kings and Iguanas.
The Afro-American Hospital, now the Riverside Hotel in Clarksdale, was the site of the dedication of the fourth historic marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail.[20]
Louis Armstrong
Future Shorts presents Music Matters - Louis Armstrong, 1:33
Louis Armstrong gave the world songs full of hope.
http://whymusicmatters.org/
Music Matters is a collective of people across the music industry,
including artists, retailers, songwriters, labels and managers, formed
to remind listeners of the significance and value of music.
Words from the filmmaker:
"Music has been my closest ally for as long as I can remember. When
none of my friends cared to hear about my messy prolonged break ups any
more, Jeff Buckley still listened. More importantly he still spoke to
me, even though he was dead. Similarly, Louis Armstrong and I are best
friends now despite the fact that neither of us was ever alive at the
same time. Thanks to his music he means more to me than most of my
'friends' on Facebook. I feel I know more about his history than that of
my own family and the way he blows that horn makes me feel as though he
understands me better than I understand myself.
I felt that
these sentiments were perhaps a bit much for the purposes of my
animated film. Instead I focused on Louis' essence as conveyed through
his own words. The text in my short film is taken from Louis
introduction 'What A Wonderful World' for a live recording of the song."
https://youtu.be/E8HpLq3BVtc
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong's stage personality matched his cornet and trumpet playing.
Louis Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971),[1] nicknamed Satchmo[2] or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and an influential figure in jazz music.
Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an "inventive" trumpet and cornet
player, Armstrong was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the
focus of the music from collective improvisation to solo performance.
With his instantly recognizable gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an
influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser,
bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes. He was
also skilled at scat singing (vocalizing using sounds and syllables instead of actual lyrics).
Renowned
for his charismatic stage presence and voice almost as much as for his
trumpet-playing, Armstrong's influence extends well beyond jazz music,
and by the end of his career in the 1960s, he was widely regarded as a
profound influence on popular music in general. Armstrong was one of the
first truly popular African-American entertainers to "cross over",
whose skin color was secondary to his music in an America that was
severely racially divided. He rarely publicly politicized his race,
often to the dismay of fellow African-Americans, but took a
well-publicized stand for desegregation during the Little Rock Crisis.
His artistry and personality allowed him socially acceptable access to
the upper echelons of American society that were highly restricted for
black men.
Armstrong often stated that he was born on July 4, 1900,[3][4]
a date that has been noted in many biographies. Although he died in
1971, it was not until the mid-1980s that his true birth date of August
4, 1901 was discovered by researcher Tad Jones through the examination of baptismal records.[5] Armstrong was born into a very poor family in New Orleans, Louisiana,
the grandson of slaves. He spent his youth in poverty, in a rough
neighborhood, known as “the Battlefield”, which was part of the Storyville
legal prostitution district. His father, William Armstrong (1881–1922),
abandoned the family when Louis was an infant and took up with another
woman. His mother, Mary "Mayann" Albert (1886–1927), then left Louis and
his younger sister, Beatrice Armstrong Collins (1903–1987), in the care
of his grandmother, Josephine Armstrong, and at times, his Uncle Isaac.
At five, he moved back to live with his mother and her relatives, and
saw his father only in parades. He attended the Fisk School for Boys,
where he likely had early exposure to music. He brought in some money as
a paperboy and also by finding discarded food and selling it to
restaurants, but it was not enough to keep his mother from prostitution. He hung out in dance halls close to home, where he observed everything from licentious dancing to the quadrille. For extra money he also hauled coal to Storyville, the famed red-light district, and listened to the bands playing in the brothels and dance halls, especially Pete Lala's where Joe "King" Oliver performed and other famous musicians would drop in to jam.
After
dropping out of the Fisk School at age eleven, Armstrong joined a
quartet of boys who sang in the streets for money. But he also started
to get into trouble. Cornet player Bunk Johnson said he taught Armstrong (then 11) to play by ear at Dago Tony's Tonk in New Orleans,[6]
although in his later years Armstrong gave the credit to Oliver.
Armstrong hardly looked back at his youth as the worst of times but
instead drew inspiration from it, “Every time I close my eyes blowing
that trumpet of mine—I look right in the heart of good old New
Orleans... It has given me something to live for.”[7]
He also worked for a Lithuanian-Jewishimmigrant
family, the Karnofskys, who had a junk hauling business and gave him
odd jobs. They took him in and treated him as almost a family member,
knowing he lived without a father, and would feed and nurture him.[8] He later wrote a memoir of his relationship with the Karnofskys titled, Louis Armstrong + the Jewish Family in New Orleans, La., the Year of 1907.
In it he describes his discovery that this family was also subject to
discrimination by "other white folks' nationalities who felt that they
were better than the Jewish race... I was only seven years old but I
could easily see the ungodly treatment that the White Folks were handing
the poor Jewish family whom I worked for."[9] Armstrong wore a Star of David pendant for the rest of his life and wrote about what he learned from them: "how to live—real life and determination."[10]
The influence of Karnofsky is remembered in New Orleans by the
Karnofsky Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to accepting
donated musical instruments to "put them into the hands of an eager
child who could not otherwise take part in a wonderful learning
experience."[11]
Armstrong with his first trumpet instructor, Peter Davis, in 1965
Armstrong developed his cornet
playing skills by playing in the band of the New Orleans Home for
Colored Waifs, where he had been sent multiple times for general
delinquency, most notably for a long term after firing his stepfather's
pistol into the air at a New Year's Eve
celebration, as police records confirm. Professor Peter Davis (who
frequently appeared at the Home at the request of its administrator,
Captain Joseph Jones)[12]
instilled discipline in and provided musical training to the otherwise
self-taught Armstrong. Eventually, Davis made Armstrong the band leader.
The Home band played around New Orleans and the thirteen-year-old Louis
began to draw attention by his cornet playing, starting him on a
musical career.[13]
At fourteen he was released from the Home, living again with his father
and new stepmother and then back with his mother and also back to the
streets and their temptations. Armstrong got his first dance hall job at
Henry Ponce’s where Black Benny became his protector and guide. He hauled coal by day and played his cornet at night.
He played in the city's frequent brass band parades and listened to older musicians every chance he got, learning from Bunk Johnson, Buddy Petit, Kid Ory, and above all, Joe "King" Oliver, who acted as a mentor and father figure to the young musician. Later, he played in the brass bands and riverboats of New Orleans, and began traveling with the well-regarded band of Fate Marable, which toured on a steamboat up and down the Mississippi River.
He described his time with Marable as "going to the University," since
it gave him a much wider experience working with written arrangements.
In 1919, Joe Oliver decided to go north and resigned his position in Kid Ory's band; Armstrong replaced him. He also became second trumpet for the Tuxedo Brass Band, a society band.[14]
"Mack the Knife, 3:28 https://youtu.be/6YTS9jFB084
Through
all his riverboat experience Armstrong’s musicianship began to mature
and expand. At twenty, he could read music and he started to be featured
in extended trumpet solos, one of the first jazzmen to do this,
injecting his own personality and style into his solo turns. He had
learned how to create a unique sound and also started using singing and
patter in his performances.[15]
In 1922, Armstrong joined the exodus to Chicago, where he had been
invited by his mentor, Joe "King" Oliver, to join his Creole Jazz Band
and where he could make a sufficient income so that he no longer needed
to supplement his music with day labor jobs. It was a boom time in
Chicago and though race relations were poor, the “Windy City” was
teeming with jobs for black people, who were making good wages in
factories and had plenty to spend on entertainment.
Oliver's band
was the best and most influential hot jazz band in Chicago in the early
1920s, at a time when Chicago was the center of the jazz universe.
Armstrong lived luxuriously in Chicago, in his own apartment with his
own private bath (his first). Excited as he was to be in Chicago, he
began his career-long pastime of writing nostalgic letters to friends in
New Orleans. As Armstrong’s reputation grew, he was challenged to
“cutting contests” by hornmen trying to displace the new phenom, who
could blow two hundred high C’s in a row.[16] Armstrong made his first recordings on the Gennett and Okeh
labels (jazz records were starting to boom across the country),
including taking some solos and breaks, while playing second cornet in
Oliver's band in 1923. At this time, he met Hoagy Carmichael (with whom he would collaborate later) who was introduced by friend Bix Beiderbecke, who now had his own Chicago band.
Armstrong enjoyed working with Oliver, but Louis' second wife, pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong,
urged him to seek more prominent billing and develop his newer style
away from the influence of Oliver. Armstrong took the advice of his wife
and left Oliver's band. For a year Armstrong played in Fletcher Henderson's
band in New York on many recordings. After playing in New York,
Armstrong returned to Chicago, playing in large orchestras; there he
created his most important early recordings.[17]
Lil had her husband play classical music in church concerts to broaden
his skill and improve his solo play and she prodded him into wearing
more stylish attire to make him look sharp and to better offset his
growing girth. Lil’s influence eventually undermined Armstrong’s
relationship with his mentor, especially concerning his salary and
additional moneys that Oliver held back from Armstrong and other band
members. Armstrong and Oliver parted amicably in 1924. Shortly
afterward, Armstrong received an invitation to go to New York City to
play with the Fletcher Henderson
Orchestra, the top African-American band of the day. Armstrong switched
to the trumpet to blend in better with the other musicians in his
section. His influence upon Henderson's tenor sax soloist, Coleman Hawkins, can be judged by listening to the records made by the band during this period.
Armstrong
quickly adapted to the more tightly controlled style of Henderson,
playing trumpet and even experimenting with the trombone and the other
members quickly took up Armstrong’s emotional, expressive pulse. Soon
his act included singing and telling tales of New Orleans characters,
especially preachers.[18] The Henderson Orchestra was playing in the best venues for white-only patrons, including the famed Roseland Ballroom, featuring the classy arrangements of Don Redman. Duke Ellington’s
orchestra would go to Roseland to catch Armstrong’s performances and
young hornmen around town tried in vain to outplay him, splitting their
lips in their attempts.
During this time, Armstrong made many recordings on the side, arranged by an old friend from New Orleans, pianist Clarence Williams;
these included small jazz band sides with the Williams Blue Five (some
of the best pairing Armstrong with one of Armstrong's few rivals in
fiery technique and ideas, Sidney Bechet) and a series of accompaniments with blues singers, including Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Alberta Hunter.
Armstrong
returned to Chicago in 1925 due mostly to the urging of his wife, who
wanted to pump up Armstrong’s career and income. He was content in New
York but later would concede that she was right and that the Henderson
Orchestra was limiting his artistic growth. In publicity, much to his
chagrin, she billed him as “the World’s Greatest Trumpet Player”. At
first, he was actually a member of the Lil Hardin Armstrong Band and
working for his wife.[19] He began recording under his own name for Okeh with his famous Hot Five and Hot Seven groups, producing hits such as "Potato Head Blues", "Muggles", (a reference to marijuana, for which Armstrong had a lifelong fondness), and "West End Blues", the music of which set the standard and the agenda for jazz for many years to come.
The group included Kid Ory (trombone), Johnny Dodds (clarinet), Johnny St. Cyr
(banjo), wife Lil on piano, and usually no drummer. Armstrong’s
bandleading style was easygoing, as St. Cyr noted, "One felt so relaxed
working with him, and he was very broad-minded . . . always did his best
to feature each individual."[20] His recordings soon after with pianist Earl "Fatha" Hines (most famously their 1928 Weatherbird
duet) and Armstrong's trumpet introduction to "West End Blues" remain
some of the most famous and influential improvisations in jazz history.
Armstrong was now free to develop his personal style as he wished, which
included a heavy dose of effervescent jive, such as "whip that thing,
Miss Lil" and "Mr. Johnny Dodds, Aw, do that clarinet, boy!"[21]
Armstrong also played with Erskine Tate’s
Little Symphony, actually a quintet, which played mostly at the Vendome
Theatre. They furnished music for silent movies and live shows,
including jazz versions of classical music, such as "Madame Butterfly,"
which gave Armstrong experience with longer forms of music and with
hosting before a large audience. He began to scat sing (improvised vocal
jazz using nonsensical words) and was among the first to record it, on "Heebie Jeebies"
in 1926. The recording was so popular that the group became the most
famous jazz band in the United States, even though they had not
performed live to any great extent. Young musicians across the country,
black or white, were turned on by Armstrong’s new type of jazz.[22]
After separating from Lil, Armstrong started to play at the Sunset Café for Al Capone's associate Joe Glaser in the Carroll Dickerson Orchestra, with Earl Hines on piano, which was soon renamed Louis Armstrong and his Stompers,[23]
though Hines was the music director and Glaser managed the orchestra.
Hines and Armstrong became fast friends and successful collaborators.[24]
Armstrong returned to New York, in 1929, where he played in the pit orchestra of the successful musical Hot Chocolate, an all-black revue written by Andy Razaf and pianist/composer Fats Waller. He also made a cameo appearance as a vocalist, regularly stealing the show with his rendition of "Ain't Misbehavin'", his version of the song becoming his biggest selling record to date.[25]
Armstrong started to work at Connie's Inn in Harlem, chief rival to the Cotton Club, a venue for elaborately staged floor shows,[26] and a front for gangster Dutch Schultz. Armstrong also had considerable success with vocal recordings, including versions of famous songs composed by his old friend Hoagy Carmichael. His 1930s recordings took full advantage of the new RCAribbon microphone, introduced in 1931, which imparted a characteristic warmth to vocals and immediately became an intrinsic part of the 'crooning' sound of artists like Bing Crosby. Armstrong's famous interpretation of Hoagy Carmichael's "Stardust"
became one of the most successful versions of this song ever recorded,
showcasing Armstrong's unique vocal sound and style and his innovative
approach to singing songs that had already become standards.
Armstrong's radical re-working of Sidney Arodin and Carmichael's "Lazy River"
(recorded in 1931) encapsulated many features of his groundbreaking
approach to melody and phrasing. The song begins with a brief trumpet
solo, then the main melody is stated by sobbing horns, memorably
punctuated by Armstrong's growling interjections at the end of each bar:
"Yeah! ..."Uh-huh" ..."Sure" ... "Way down, way down." In the first
verse, he ignores the notated melody entirely and sings as if playing a
trumpet solo, pitching most of the first line on a single note and using
strongly syncopated phrasing. In the second stanza he breaks into an
almost fully improvised melody, which then evolves into a classic
passage of Armstrong "scat singing".
Louis Armstrong in 1953
As
with his trumpet playing, Armstrong's vocal innovations served as a
foundation stone for the art of jazz vocal interpretation. The uniquely
gritty coloration of his voice became a musical archetype
that was much imitated and endlessly impersonated. His scat singing
style was enriched by his matchless experience as a trumpet soloist. His
resonant, velvety lower-register tone and bubbling cadences on sides
such as "Lazy River" exerted a huge influence on younger white singers
such as Bing Crosby.
The Great Depression
of the early 1930s was especially hard on the jazz scene. The Cotton
Club closed in 1936 after a long downward spiral, and many musicians
stopped playing altogether as club dates evaporated. Bix Beiderbecke
died and Fletcher Henderson’s band broke up. King Oliver made a few
records but otherwise struggled. Sidney Bechet became a tailor and Kid
Ory returned to New Orleans and raised chickens.[27]
Armstrong moved to Los Angeles in 1930 to seek new opportunities. He played at the New Cotton Club in Los Angeles with Lionel Hampton
on drums. The band drew the Hollywood crowd, which could still afford a
lavish night life, while radio broadcasts from the club connected with
younger audiences at home. Bing Crosby and many other celebrities were
regulars at the club. In 1931, Armstrong appeared in his first movie, Ex-Flame. Armstrong was convicted of marijuana possession but received a suspended sentence.[28] He returned to Chicago in late 1931 and played in bands more in the Guy Lombardo vein and he recorded more standards. When the mob insisted that he get out of town,[29]
Armstrong visited New Orleans, got a hero’s welcome and saw old
friends. He sponsored a local baseball team known as “Armstrong’s Secret
Nine” and had a cigar named after him.[30]
But soon he was on the road again and after a tour across the country
shadowed by the mob, Armstrong decided to go to Europe to escape.
After
returning to the United States, he undertook several exhausting tours.
His agent Johnny Collins’ erratic behavior and his own spending ways
left Armstrong short of cash. Breach of contract violations plagued him.
Finally, he hired Joe Glaser as his new manager, a tough mob-connected
wheeler-dealer, who began to straighten out his legal mess, his mob
troubles, and his debts. Armstrong also began to experience problems
with his fingers and lips, which were aggravated by his unorthodox
playing style. As a result he branched out, developing his vocal style
and making his first theatrical appearances. He appeared in movies
again, including Crosby's 1936 hit Pennies from Heaven. In 1937, Armstrong substituted for Rudy Vallee on the CBS radio network and became the first African American to host a sponsored, national broadcast.[31]
After spending many years on the road, Armstrong settled permanently in Queens, New York in 1943 in contentment with his fourth wife, Lucille. Although subject to the vicissitudes of Tin Pan Alley and the gangster-ridden music business, as well as anti-black prejudice, he continued to develop his playing. He recorded Hoagy Carmichael's Rockin' Chair for Okeh Records.
During
the subsequent thirty years, Armstrong played more than three hundred
gigs a year. Bookings for big bands tapered off during the 1940s due to
changes in public tastes: ballrooms closed, and there was competition
from television and from other types of music becoming more popular than
big band music. It became impossible under such circumstances to
support and finance a 16-piece touring band.
The All Stars
Louis Armstrong in 1953
Following
a highly successful small-group jazz concert at New York Town Hall on
May 17, 1947, featuring Armstrong with trombonist/singer Jack Teagarden, Armstrong's manager Joe Glaser
dissolved the Armstrong big band on August 13, 1947 and established a
six-piece small group featuring Armstrong with (initially) Teagarden, Earl Hines and other top swing and dixieland musicians, most of them ex-big band leaders. The new group was announced at the opening of Billy Berg's Supper Club.
This group was called Louis Armstrong and his All Stars and included at various times Earl "Fatha" Hines, Barney Bigard, Edmond Hall, Jack Teagarden, Trummy Young, Arvell Shaw, Billy Kyle, Marty Napoleon, Big Sid Catlett, Cozy Cole, Tyree Glenn, Barrett Deems, Joe Darensbourg and the Filipino-American percussionist Danny Barcelona.
During this period, Armstrong made many recordings and appeared in over
thirty films. He was the first jazz musician to appear on the cover of Time Magazine on February 21, 1949.)
In 1948, he participated in the Nice Jazz Festival where Suzy Delair sings for the first time in public C'est si bon by Henri Betti and André Hornez.
Love this song, Armstrong asked the editor if he can make a recording
in America what the publisher allows it. Armstrong recorded the first
American version of C'est si bon June 26, 1950 in New York with English lyrics by Jerry Seelen. On its release, the disc becomes a worldwide success.
In 1964, he recorded his biggest-selling record, "Hello, Dolly!", a song by Jerry Herman, originally sung by Carol Channing.
Armstrong's cover of the song, which lasted 22 weeks on the Hot 100,
longer than any other record that year, went to No. 1 on the pop chart,
making Armstrong (age 62 years, 9 months, 5 days) the oldest person to
date to ever accomplish that feat. In the process, Armstrong dislodged The Beatles from the No. 1 position they had occupied for 14 consecutive weeks with three different songs.[32]
Armstrong
kept up his busy tour schedule until a few years before his death in
1971. In his later years he would sometimes play some of his numerous gigs
by rote, but other times would enliven the most mundane gig with his
vigorous playing, often to the astonishment of his band. He also toured
Africa, Europe, and Asia under sponsorship of the US State Department with great success, earning the nickname "Ambassador Satch " and inspiring Dave Brubeck to compose his jazz musical The Real Ambassadors[33]
While
failing health restricted his schedule in his last years, within those
limitations he continued playing until the day he died.
Judging
from home recorded tapes now in our Museum Collections, Louis
pronounced his own name as “Lewis.” On his 1964 record “Hello, Dolly,”
he sings, “This is Lewis, Dolly” but in 1933 he made a record called
“Laughin’ Louie.” Many broadcast announcers, fans, and acquaintances
called him “Louie” and in a videotaped interview from 1983 Lucille
Armstrong calls her late husband “Louie” as well. Musicians and close
friends usually called him “Pops.”[40]
In
a memoir written for Robert Goffin between 1943 and 1944, Armstrong
states, "All white folks call me Louie," suggesting that he himself did
not.[41] That said, Armstrong was registered as "Lewie" for the 1920 U.S. Census. On various live records he's called "Louie" on stage, such as on the 1952 "Can Anyone Explain?" from the live album In Scandinavia vol.1. It should also be noted that "Lewie" is the French pronunciation of "Louis" and is commonly used in Louisiana.
Family
On March 19, 1918, Louis married Daisy Parker, a prostitute from Gretna, Louisiana.[42]
They adopted a 3-year-old boy, Clarence Armstrong, whose mother, Louis'
cousin Flora, died soon after giving birth. Clarence Armstrong was
mentally disabled (the result of a head injury at an early age) and
Louis would spend the rest of his life taking care of him.[43] Louis' marriage to Parker failed quickly and they separated in 1923.
Armstrong with Lucille Wilson (c. 1960s)
On February 4, 1924, Louis married Lil Hardin Armstrong,
who was Oliver's pianist and had also divorced her first spouse only a
few years earlier. His second wife was instrumental in developing his
career, but in the late 1920s Hardin and Louis grew apart. They
separated in 1931 and divorced in 1938, after which Louis married
longtime girlfriend Alpha Smith.[44]
His marriage to his third wife lasted four years, and they divorced in
1942. Louis then married Lucille Wilson, a singer at the Cotton Club, to whom he was married until his death in 1971.[45]
Armstrong's marriages never produced any offspring, though he loved children.[46]
However, in December 2012, 57-year-old Sharon Preston-Folta claimed to
be his daughter, from a 1950s affair between Armstrong and Lucille
"Sweets" Preston, a dancer at the Cotton Club.[47]
In a 1955 letter to his manager, Joe Glaser, Armstrong affirmed his
belief that Preston's newborn baby was his daughter, and ordered Glaser
to pay a monthly allowance of $400 to mother and child.[48]
Personality
Armstrong
was noted for his colorful and charismatic personality. His own
biography vexed some biographers and historians, as he had a habit of
telling tales, particularly of his early childhood, when he was less
scrutinized, and his embellishments of his history often lack
consistency.
He was not only an entertainer, Armstrong was also a
leading personality of the day. He was beloved by an American public
that gave even the greatest African American
performers little access beyond their public celebrity, and he was able
to live a private life of access and privilege accorded to few other
African Americans during that era.
He generally remained
politically neutral, which at times alienated him from members of the
black community who looked to him to use his prominence with white
America to become more of an outspoken figure during the Civil Rights Era of U.S. history.
The nicknames Satchmo and Satch are short for Satchelmouth.
Like many things in Armstrong's life, which was filled with colorful
stories both real and imagined, many of his own telling, the nickname
has many possible origins.
The most common tale that biographers
tell is the story of Armstrong as a young boy dancing for pennies in the
streets of New Orleans, who would scoop up the coins off of the streets
and stick them into his mouth to avoid having the bigger children steal
them from him. Someone dubbed him "satchel mouth" for his mouth acting
as a satchel. Another tale is that because of his large mouth, he was nicknamed "satchel mouth" which became shortened to Satchmo.
Early on he was also known as Dipper, short for Dippermouth, a reference to the piece Dippermouth Blues.[49] and something of a riff on his unusual embouchure.
The nickname Pops
came from Armstrong's own tendency to forget people's names and simply
call them "pops" instead. The nickname was soon turned on Armstrong
himself. It was used as the title of a 2010 biography of Armstrong by Terry Teachout.They also called him the king of jazz.
Armstrong's autograph from the 1960s
Armstrong and race
Armstrong was largely accepted into white
society, both on stage and off, a privilege reserved for very few
African-American public figures, and usually those of either exceptional
talent or fair skin tone. As his fame grew, so did his access to the
finer things in life usually denied to a black man, even a famous one.
His renown was such that he dined in the best restaurants and stayed in
hotels usually exclusively for whites.[50]
It
was a power and privilege that he enjoyed, although he was very careful
not to flaunt it with fellow performers of color, and privately, he
shared what access that he could with friends and fellow musicians.
That
still did not prevent members of the African-American community,
particularly in the late 1950s to the early 1970s, from calling him an Uncle Tom, a black-on-black racial epithet for someone who kowtowed to white society at the expense of their own racial identity. Billie Holiday countered, however, "Of course Pops toms, but he toms from the heart."[51]
He was criticized for accepting the title of "King of The Zulus" for Mardi Gras in 1949. In the New Orleans African-American community it is an honored role as the head of leading black Carnival Krewe, but bewildering or offensive to outsiders with their traditional costume of grass-skirts and blackface makeup satirizing southern white attitudes.
Some
musicians criticized Armstrong for playing in front of segregated
audiences, and for not taking a strong enough stand in the civil rights movement.[52]
The few exceptions made it more effective when he did speak out. Armstrong's criticism of President Eisenhower, calling him "two-faced" and "gutless" because of his inaction during the conflict over school desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957 made national news.
As a protest, Armstrong canceled a planned tour of the Soviet Union on behalf of the State Department
saying "The way they're treating my people in the South, the government
can go to hell" and that he could not represent his government abroad
when it was in conflict with its own people.[53] Six days after Armstrong's comments, Eisenhower ordered Federal troops to Little Rock to escort students into the school.[54]
The FBI kept a file on Armstrong, for his outspokenness about integration.[55]
Religion
When asked about his religion, Armstrong would answer that he was raised a Baptist, always wore a Star of David, and was friends with the Pope.[56]
Armstrong wore the Star of David in honor of the Karnofsky family, who
took him in as a child and lent him the money to buy his first cornet. Louis Armstrong was, in fact, baptized as a Catholic at the Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in New Orleans,[56] and he met popes Pius XII and Paul VI,
though there is no evidence that he considered himself Catholic.
Armstrong seems to have been tolerant towards various religions, but
also found humor in them.
Personal habits
Purging
Armstrong was also greatly concerned with his health. He made frequent use of laxatives
as a means of controlling his weight, a practice he advocated both to
personal acquaintances and in the diet plans he published under the
title Lose Weight the Satchmo Way. Armstrong's laxative of preference in his younger days was Pluto Water, but he then became an enthusiastic convert when he discovered the herbal remedy Swiss Kriss.
He would extol its virtues to anyone who would listen and pass out
packets to everyone he encountered, including members of the British Royal Family.
(Armstrong also appeared in humorous, albeit risqué, cards that he had
printed to send out to friends; the cards bore a picture of him sitting
on a toilet—as viewed through a keyhole—with the slogan "Satch says, 'Leave it all behind ya!'")[57] The cards have sometimes been incorrectly described as ads for Swiss Kriss.[58]
In a live recording of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" with Velma Middleton, he changes the lyric from "Put another record on while I pour" to "Take some Swiss Kriss while I pour."[59]
Love of food
The
concern with his health and weight was balanced by his love of food,
reflected in such songs as "Cheesecake", "Cornet Chop Suey,"[60] though "Struttin’ with Some Barbecue" was written about a fine-looking companion, not about food.[61] He kept a strong connection throughout his life to the cooking of New Orleans, always signing his letters, "Red beans and ricely yours..."[62]
Writings
Armstrong’s
gregariousness extended to writing. On the road, he wrote constantly,
sharing favorite themes of his life with correspondents around the
world. He avidly typed or wrote on whatever stationery was at hand,
recording instant takes on music, sex, food, childhood memories, his
heavy "medicinal" marijuana use—and even his bowel movements, which he gleefully described.[63] He had a fondness for lewd jokes and dirty limericks as well.
Social organizations
Louis Armstrong was not, as is often claimed, a Freemason.
Although he is usually listed as being a member of Montgomery Lodge No.
18 (Prince Hall) in New York, no such lodge has ever existed. Armstrong
states in his autobiography, however, that he was a member of the Knights of Pythias, which is not a Masonic group.[64]
Music
Horn playing and early jazz
Selmer trumpet, given as a gift by King George V of the United Kingdom to Louis Armstrong in 1933
In
his early years, Armstrong was best known for his virtuosity with the
cornet and trumpet. The greatest trumpet playing of his early years can
be heard on his Hot Five and Hot Seven records, as well as the Red Onion Jazz Babies. Armstrong's improvisations were daring and sophisticated for the time, while often subtle and melodic.
He
often essentially re-composed pop-tunes he played, making them more
interesting. Armstrong's playing is filled with original melodies,
creative leaps, and subtle relaxed or driving rhythms. Armstrong's
playing technique, honed by constant practice, extended the range, tone
and capabilities of the trumpet. In these records, Armstrong almost
single-handedly created the role of the jazz soloist, taking what was
essentially a collective folk music and turning it into an art form with
tremendous possibilities for individual expression.
Armstrong's
work in the 1920s shows him playing at the outer limits of his
abilities. The Hot Five records, especially, often have minor flubs and
missed notes, which do little to detract from listening enjoyment since
the energy of the spontaneous performance comes through. By the
mid-1930s, Armstrong achieved a smooth assurance, knowing exactly what
he could do and carrying out his ideas to perfection.
He was one
of the first artists to use recordings of his performances to improve
himself. Armstrong was an avid audiophile. He had a large collection of
recordings, including reel-to-reel tapes, which he took on the road with
him in a trunk during his later career. He enjoyed listening to his own
recordings, and comparing his performances musically. In the den of his
home, he had the latest audio equipment and would sometimes rehearse
and record along with his older recordings or the radio.[65]
Vocal popularity
As his music progressed and popularity grew, his singing also became very important. Armstrong was not the first to record scat singing, but he was masterful at it and helped popularize it. He had a hit with his playing and scat singing on "Heebie Jeebies"
when, according to some legends, the sheet music fell on the floor and
he simply started singing nonsense syllables. Armstrong stated in his
memoirs that this actually occurred. He also sang out "I done forgot the
words" in the middle of recording "I'm A Ding Dong Daddy From Dumas."
Such
records were hits and scat singing became a major part of his
performances. Long before this, however, Armstrong was playing around
with his vocals, shortening and lengthening phrases, interjecting
improvisations, using his voice as creatively as his trumpet.
Colleagues and followers
During
his long career he played and sang with some of the most important
instrumentalists and vocalists of the time; among them were Bing Crosby, Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, Earl Hines, the singing brakemanJimmie Rodgers, Bessie Smith and perhaps most famously Ella Fitzgerald.
His
influence upon Bing Crosby is particularly important with regard to the
subsequent development of popular music: Crosby admired and copied
Armstrong, as is evident on many of his early recordings, notably "Just
One More Chance" (1931). The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz describes Crosby's debt to Armstrong in precise detail, although it does not acknowledge Armstrong by name:
Crosby...
was important in introducing into the mainstream of popular singing an
Afro-American concept of song as a lyrical extension of speech... His
techniques—easing the weight of the breath on the vocal cords, passing
into a head voice at a low register, using forward production to aid distinct enunciation, singing on consonants (a practice of black singers), and making discreet use of appoggiaturas, mordents, and slurs to emphasize the text—were emulated by nearly all later popular singers.
Armstrong recorded two albums with Ella Fitzgerald: Ella and Louis, and Ella and Louis Again for Verve Records, with the sessions featuring the backing musicianship of the Oscar Peterson Trio and drummers Buddy Rich (on the first album), and Louie Bellson (on the second). Norman Granz then had the vision for Ella and Louis to record Porgy and Bess which is the most famous and critically acclaimed version of the Gerswhin brothers' masterpiece.
His recordings for Columbia Records, Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy (1954) and Satch Plays Fats (all Fats Waller
tunes) (1955) were both being considered masterpieces, as well as
moderately well selling. In 1961 the All Stars participated in two
albums - "The Great Summit" and "The Great Reunion" (now together as a
single disc) with Duke Ellington.
The albums feature many of Ellington's most famous compositions (as
well as two exclusive cuts) with Duke sitting in on piano. His
participation in Dave Brubeck's high-concept jazz musical The Real Ambassadors (1963) was critically acclaimed, and features "Summer Song," one of Armstrong's most popular vocal efforts.
Louis Armstrong in 1966
In
1964 his recording of the song "Hello Dolly" went to number one. An
album of the same title was quickly created around the song, and also
shot to number one (knocking The Beatles
off the top of the chart). The album sold very well for the rest of the
year, quickly going "Gold" (500,000). His performance of "Hello Dolly"
won for best male pop vocal performance at the 1964 Grammy Awards.
Armstrong enjoyed many types of music, from blues to the arrangements of Guy Lombardo, to Latin American folksongs, to classical symphonies and opera.
Armstrong incorporated influences from all these sources into his
performances, sometimes to the bewilderment of fans who wanted him to
stay in convenient narrow categories. Armstrong was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an early influence. Some of his solos from the 1950s, such as the hard rocking version of "St. Louis Blues" from the WC Handy album, show that the influence went in both directions.
Literature, radio, films and TV
Armstrong
appeared in more than a dozen Hollywood films, usually playing a band
leader or musician. His most familiar role was as the bandleader cum narrator in the 1956 musical, High Society, in which he sang the title song and performed a duet with Bing Crosby on "Now You Has Jazz". In 1947, he played himself in the movie New Orleans opposite Billie Holiday, which chronicled the demise of the Storyville district and the ensuing exodus of musicians from New Orleans to Chicago.[69] In the 1959 film, The Five Pennies (the story of the cornetist Red Nichols), Armstrong played himself as well as singing and playing several classic numbers. With Danny Kaye
Armstrong performed a duet of "When the Saints Go Marching In" during
which Kaye impersonated Armstrong. Armstrong also had a part in the film
alongside James Stewart in The Glenn Miller Story in which Glenn (played by Stewart) jammed with Armstrong and a few other noted musicians of the time.
He
was the first African American to host a nationally broadcast radio
show in the 1930s. In 1969, Armstrong had a cameo role in the film
version of Hello, Dolly! as the bandleader, Louis, to which he sang the title song with actress Barbra Streisand. His solo recording of "Hello, Dolly!" is one of his most recognizable performances.
Armstrong played a bandleader in the television production "The Lord Don't Play Favorites" on Producers' Showcase in 1956
He was heard on such radio programs as The Story of Swing (1937) and This Is Jazz (1947), and he also made countless television appearances, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, including appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
Many
of Armstrong's recordings remain popular. More than four decades since
his death, a larger number of his recordings from all periods of his
career are more widely available than at any time during his lifetime.
His songs are broadcast and listened to every day throughout the world,
and are honored in various movies, TV series, commercials, and even anime and video games. "A Kiss to Build a Dream On" was included in the video game Fallout 2, accompanying the intro cinematic. It was also used in the 1993 film Sleepless in Seattle and the 2005 film Lord of War. "Melancholy Blues," performed by Armstrong and his Hot Seven was included on the Voyager Golden Record
sent into outer space to represent one of the greatest achievements of
humanity. Most familiar to modern listeners is his ubiquitous rendition
of "What a Wonderful World". In 2008, Armstrong's recording of Edith Piaf's famous "La Vie En Rose" was used in a scene of the popular Disney/Pixar film WALL-E. The song was also used in parts, especially the opening trumpets, in the French filmJeux d'enfants (Love Me If You Dare.) Argentine writer Julio Cortázar, a self-described Armstrong admirer, asserted that a 1952 Louis Armstrong concert at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris played a significant role in inspiring him to create the fictional creatures called Cronopios
that are the subject of a number of Cortázar's short stories. Cortázar
once called Armstrong himself "Grandísimo Cronopio" (The Great
Cronopio).
Armstrong appears as a minor fictionalized character in Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory Series. When he and his band escape from a Nazi-like
Confederacy, they enhance the insipid mainstream music of the North. A
young Armstrong also appears as a minor fictionalized character in Patrick Neate's 2001 novel Twelve Bar Blues, part of which is set in New Orleans, and which was a winner at that year's Whitbread Book Awards.
There is a pivotal scene in Stardust Memories (1980) in which Woody Allen is overwhelmed by a recording of Armstrong's "Stardust" and experiences a nostalgic epiphany.[70]
The combination of the music and the perfect moment is the catalyst for
much of the film's action, prompting the protagonist to fall in love
with an ill-advised woman.[71] Terry Teachout wrote a one-man play about Armstrong called Satchmo at the Waldorf that was premiered in 2011 in Orlando, Fla., and has since been produced by Shakespeare & Company, Long Wharf Theater, and the Wilma Theater. The production ran off Broadway in 2014.
Legacy
Louis Armstrong and Grace Kelly on the set of High Society, 1956
The
influence of Armstrong on the development of jazz is virtually
immeasurable. Yet, his irrepressible personality both as a performer,
and as a public figure later in his career, was so strong that to some
it sometimes overshadowed his contributions as a musician and singer.
As a virtuoso trumpet player, Armstrong had a unique tone and an extraordinary talent for melodic improvisation.
Through his playing, the trumpet emerged as a solo instrument in jazz
and is used widely today. He was a masterful accompanist and ensemble
player in addition to his extraordinary skills as a soloist. With his
innovations, he raised the bar musically for all who came after him.
Though Armstrong is widely recognized as a pioneer of scat singing, Ethel Waters precedes his scatting on record in the 1930s according to Gary Giddins and others.[77] Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra are just two singers who were greatly indebted to him. Holiday said that she always wanted Bessie Smith's
'big' sound and Armstrong's feeling in her singing. Even special
musicians like Duke Ellington have praised Armstrong through strong
testimonials. Duke Ellington said, "If anybody was a master, it was
Louis Armstrong." In 1950, Bing Crosby,
the most successful vocalist of the first half of the 20th century,
said, "He is the beginning and the end of music in America."
In the summer of 2001, in commemoration of the centennial of Armstrong's birth, New Orleans's main airport was renamed Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.
In 2002, the Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings (1925–1928) were preserved in the United States National Recording Registry, a registry of recordings selected yearly by the National Recording Preservation Board for preservation in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress.[78]
The US Open tennis tournament's former main stadium was named Louis Armstrong Stadium in honor of Armstrong who had lived a few blocks from the site.[79]
Today, there are many bands worldwide dedicated to preserving and honoring the music and style of Satchmo, including the Louis Armstrong Society located in New Orleans, Louisiana.
House
The house where Armstrong lived for almost 28 years was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1977 and is now a museum. The Louis Armstrong House Museum,
at 34-56 107th Street (between 34th and 37th Avenues) in Corona,
Queens, presents concerts and educational programs, operates as a
historic house museum and makes materials in its archives of writings,
books, recordings and memorabilia available to the public for research.
The museum is operated by the City University of New York's Queens College, following the dictates of Lucille Armstrong's will. The museum opened to the public on October 15, 2003. A new visitors center is planned.[80]
Duke Ellington
American Hustle - Jeep's blues - Duke Ellington, 2:35
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American composer, pianist and bandleader of jazz orchestras. He led his orchestra from 1923 until his death, his career spanning over 50 years.[1]
Born in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based in New York City from the mid-1920s onward, and gained a national profile through his orchestra's appearances at the Cotton Club
in Harlem. In the 1930s, his orchestra toured in Europe. Though widely
considered to have been a pivotal figure in the history of jazz,
Ellington embraced the phrase "beyond category" as a "liberating
principle", and referred to his music as part of the more general
category of "American Music", rather than to a musical genre such as
"jazz".[2]
Some of the musicians who were members of Ellington's orchestra, such as saxophonist Johnny Hodges, are considered to be among the best players in jazz. Ellington melded them into the best-known orchestral
unit in the history of jazz. Some members stayed with the orchestra for
several decades. A master at writing miniatures for the three-minute 78 rpm
recording format, Ellington often composed specifically to feature the
style and skills of his individual musicians, such as "Jeep's Blues" for
Hodges, and "Concerto for Cootie" for trumpeter Cootie Williams, which later became "Do Nothing Till You Hear from Me" with Bob Russell's lyrics.
Often
collaborating with others, Ellington wrote more than one thousand
compositions; his extensive body of work is the largest recorded
personal jazz legacy, with many of his extant works having become standards. Ellington also recorded songs written by his bandsmen, for example Juan Tizol's "Caravan", and "Perdido", which brought a Spanish tinge to big-band jazz.
After 1941, Ellington collaborated with composer-arranger-pianist Billy Strayhorn, whom he called his "writing and arranging companion".[3]
With Strayhorn, he composed many extended compositions, or "suites", as
well as additional short pieces. Following an appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival, Rhode Island,
in July 1956, Ellington and his orchestra enjoyed a major career
revival and embarked on world tours. Ellington recorded for most
American record companies of his era; performed in several films,
scoring several; and composed stage musicals.
Due to his
inventive use of the orchestra, or big band, and thanks to his eloquence
and charisma, Ellington is generally considered to have elevated the
perception of jazz to an art form on a par with other traditional
musical genres. His reputation continued to rise after his death, and he
was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize for music in 1999.[4] Gunther Schuller wrote in 1989
Ellington
composed incessantly to the very last days of his life. Music was
indeed his mistress; it was his total life and his commitment to it was
incomparable and unalterable. In jazz he was a giant among giants. And
in twentieth century music, he may yet one day be recognized as one of
the half-dozen greatest masters of our time.[5]
Early life
Edward
Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was born on April 29, 1899, to James Edward
Ellington and Daisy (Kennedy) Ellington in Washington, DC. Both his
parents were pianists. Daisy primarily played parlor songs and J.E. preferred operatic arias. They lived with his maternal grandparents at 2129 Ida Place (now Ward Place), NW in the West End neighborhood of Washington, D.C.[6] Duke's father was born in Lincolnton, North Carolina, on April 15, 1879, and moved to Washington, D.C. in 1886 with his parents.[7] Daisy Kennedy was born in Washington, D.C. on January 4, 1879, the daughter of a former American slave .[6][8] James Ellington made blueprints for the United States Navy.
When Ellington was a child, his family showed racial pride and support
in their home, as did many other families. African Americans in D.C.
worked to protect their children from the era's Jim Crow laws.[9]
At
the age of seven, Ellington began taking piano lessons from Marietta
Clinkscales. Daisy surrounded her son with dignified women to reinforce
his manners and teach him to live elegantly. Ellington’s childhood
friends noticed that "his casual, offhand manner, his easy grace, and
his dapper dress gave him the bearing of a young nobleman",[10]
and began calling him "Duke." Ellington credited his "chum" Edgar
McEntree for the nickname. "I think he felt that in order for me to be
eligible for his constant companionship, I should have a title. So he
called me Duke."[11]
Though Ellington took piano lessons, he was more interested in baseball. "President Roosevelt (Teddy) would come by on his horse sometimes, and stop and watch us play", he recalled.[12] Ellington went to Armstrong Technical High School in Washington, D.C. He got his first job selling peanuts at Washington Senators baseball games.
In the summer of 1914, while working as a soda jerk at the Poodle Dog Café,
Ellington wrote his first composition, "Soda Fountain Rag" (also known
as the "Poodle Dog Rag"). He created the piece by ear, as he had not yet
learned to read and write music. "I would play the 'Soda Fountain Rag'
as a one-step, two-step, waltz, tango, and fox trot", Ellington
recalled. "Listeners never knew it was the same piece. I was established
as having my own repertoire."[13] In his autobiography, Music is my Mistress
(1973), Ellington wrote that he missed more lessons than he attended,
feeling at the time that playing the piano was not his talent.
Ellington
started sneaking into Frank Holiday's Poolroom at the age of fourteen.
Hearing the poolroom pianists play ignited Ellington's love for the
instrument, and he began to take his piano studies seriously. Among the
many piano players he listened to were Doc Perry, Lester Dishman, Louis
Brown, Turner Layton, Gertie Wells, Clarence Bowser, Sticky Mack, Blind Johnny, Cliff Jackson, Claude Hopkins, Phil Wurd, Caroline Thornton, Luckey Roberts, Eubie Blake, Joe Rochester, and Harvey Brooks.[14]
Ellington began listening to, watching, and imitating ragtime pianists, not only in Washington, D.C., but in Philadelphia and Atlantic City, where he vacationed with his mother during the summer months.[13]Dunbar High School
music teacher Henry Lee Grant gave him private lessons in harmony. With
the additional guidance of Washington pianist and band leader Oliver
"Doc" Perry, Ellington learned to read sheet music, project a professional style, and improve his technique. Ellington was also inspired by his first encounters with stride pianistsJames P. Johnson and Luckey Roberts. Later in New York he took advice from Will Marion Cook, Fats Waller, and Sidney Bechet.
Ellington started to play gigs in cafés and clubs in and around
Washington, D.C. His attachment to music was so strong that in 1916 he
turned down an art scholarship to the Pratt Institute
in Brooklyn. Three months before graduating he dropped out of Armstrong
Manual Training School, where he was studying commercial art.[15]
Working as a freelance sign-painter from 1917, Ellington began assembling groups to play for dances. In 1919 he met drummer Sonny Greer
from New Jersey, who encouraged Ellington's ambition to become a
professional musician. Ellington built his music business through his
day job: when a customer asked him to make a sign for a dance or party,
he would ask if they had musical entertainment; if not, Ellington would
offer to play for the occasion. He also had a messenger job with the
U.S. Navy and State departments, where he made a wide range of contacts.
Ellington moved out of his parents' home and bought his own as he
became a successful pianist. At first, he played in other ensembles, and
in late 1917 formed his first group, "The Duke's Serenaders" ("Colored
Syncopators", his telephone directory advertising proclaimed).[15] He was also the group's booking agent. His first play date was at the True Reformer's Hall, where he took home 75 cents.[16]
Ellington
played throughout the Washington, D.C. area and into Virginia for
private society balls and embassy parties. The band included childhood
friend Otto Hardwick, who started on string bass, then moved to C-melody sax and finally settled on alto saxophone; Arthur Whetsol on trumpet; Elmer Snowden
on banjo; and Sonny Greer on drums. The band thrived, performing for
both African-American and white audiences, a rarity in the segregated
society of the time.[17]
Music career
"East St. Louis Toodle-Oo" (1927)
Early career
When his drummer Sonny Greer was invited to join the Wilber Sweatman
Orchestra in New York City, Ellington made the fateful decision to
leave behind his successful career in Washington, D.C., and move to Harlem, ultimately becoming part of the Harlem Renaissance. New dance crazes such as the Charleston emerged in Harlem, as well as African-American musical theater, including Eubie Blake's Shuffle Along.
After the young musicians left the Sweatman Orchestra to strike out on
their own, they found an emerging jazz scene that was highly competitive
and hard to crack. They hustled pool by day and played whatever gigs
they could find. The young band met stride pianist Willie "The Lion" Smith, who introduced them to the scene and gave them some money. They played at rent-house parties for income. After a few months, the young musicians returned to Washington, D.C., feeling discouraged.
In June 1923, a gig in Atlantic City, New Jersey,
led to a play date at the prestigious Exclusive Club in Harlem. This
was followed in September 1923 by a move to the Hollywood Club – 49th
and Broadway – and a four-year engagement, which gave Ellington a solid
artistic base. He was known to play the bugle at the end of each
performance. The group was initially called Elmer Snowden and his Black
Sox Orchestra and had seven members, including trumpeter James "Bubber" Miley.
They renamed themselves "The Washingtonians". Snowden left the group in
early 1924 and Ellington took over as bandleader. After a fire, the
club was re-opened as the Club Kentucky (often referred to as the
"Kentucky Club").
Ellington made eight records in 1924, receiving composing credit on three including "Choo Choo".[18] In 1925, Ellington contributed four songs to Chocolate Kiddies starring Lottie Gee and Adelaide Hall,[19]
an all-African-American revue which introduced European audiences to
African-American styles and performers. Duke Ellington and his Kentucky
Club Orchestra grew to a group of ten players; they developed their own
sound by displaying the non-traditional expression of Ellington’s
arrangements, the street rhythms of Harlem, and the exotic-sounding
trombone growls and wah-wahs, high-squealing trumpets, and sultry
saxophone blues licks of the band members. For a short time soprano
saxophonist Sidney Bechet played with them, imparting his propulsive swing and superior musicianship to the young band members.
Cotton Club engagement
In October 1926, Ellington made a career-advancing agreement with agent-publisher Irving Mills,[20] giving Mills a 45% interest in Ellington's future.[21] Mills had an eye for new talent and early on published compositions by Hoagy Carmichael, Dorothy Fields, and Harold Arlen.
After recording a handful of acoustic titles during 1924-1926,
Ellington's signing with Mills allowed him to record prolifically,
although sometimes he recorded different versions of the same tune.
Mills often took a co-composer credit. From the beginning of their
relationship, Mills arranged recording sessions on nearly every label
including Brunswick,
Victor, Columbia, OKeh, Pathê (and its Perfect label), the ARC/Plaza
group of labels (Oriole, Domino, Jewel, Banner) and their dime-store
labels (Cameo, Lincoln, Romeo), Hit of the Week, and Columbia's cheaper
labels (Harmony, Diva, Velvet Tone, Clarion) labels which gave Ellington
popular recognition. On OKeh, his records were usually issued as "The
Harlem Footwarmers", while the Brunswick's were usually issued as The Jungle Band. "Whoopee Makers" and the "Ten Black Berries" were other pseudonyms.
In September 1927, King Oliver turned down a regular booking for his group as the house band at Harlem's Cotton Club;[22] the offer passed to Ellington after Jimmy McHugh suggested him and Mills arranged an audition.[23]
Ellington had to increase from a six to eleven-piece group to meet the
requirements of the Cotton Club's management for the audition,[24] and the engagement finally began on December 4.[25]
With a weekly radio broadcast, the Cotton Club's exclusively white and
wealthy clientele poured in nightly to see them. At the Cotton Club,
Ellington's group performed all the music for the revues, which mixed
comedy, dance numbers, vaudeville, burlesque, music, and illegal
alcohol. The musical numbers were composed by Jimmy McHugh and the
lyrics by Dorothy Fields (later Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler), with some Ellington originals mixed in. (Here he moved in with a dancer, his second wife Mildred Dixon.) Weekly radio broadcasts from the club gave Ellington national exposure, while Ellington also recorded Fields-JMcHugh and Fats Waller-Andy Razaf songs.
Although trumpeter Bubber Miley was a member of the orchestra for only a short period, he had a major influence on Ellington's sound.[26]
As an early exponent of growl trumpet, Miley changed the "sweet" dance
band sound of the group to one that was hotter, which contemporaries
termed "jungle" style. In October 1927, Ellington and his Orchestra
recorded several compositions with Adelaide Hall. One side in particular, "Creole Love Call", became a worldwide sensation and gave both Ellington and Hall their first hit record.[27] Miley had composed most of "Creole Love Call" and "Black and Tan Fantasy".
An alcoholic, Miley had to leave the band before they gained wider
fame. He died in 1932 at the age of 29, but he was an important
influence on Cootie Williams, who replaced him.
In 1929, the Cotton Club Orchestra appeared on stage for several months in Florenz Ziegfeld's Show Girl, along with vaudeville stars Jimmy Durante, Eddie Foy, Jr., Ruby Keeler, and with music and lyrics by George Gershwin and Gus Kahn. Will Vodery, Ziegfeld’s musical supervisor, recommended Ellington for the show, and, according to John Hasse's Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington,
"Perhaps during the run of Show Girl, Ellington received what he later
termed ' valuable lessons in orchestration from Will Vodery.' In his
1946 biography, Duke Ellington, Barry Ulanov wrote:
From Vodery, as he (Ellington) says himself, he drew his chromatic convictions, his uses of the tones ordinarily extraneous to the diatonic scale,
with the consequent alteration of the harmonic character of his music,
its broadening, The deepening of his resources. It has become customary
to ascribe the classical influences upon Duke – Delius, Debussy and Ravel
– to direct contact with their music. Actually his serious appreciation
of those and other modern composers, came after his meeting with
Vodery.[28]
Ellington's film work began with Black and Tan (1929), a nineteen-minute all-African-American RKO short[29] in which he played the hero "Duke". He also appeared in the Amos 'n' Andy film Check and Double Check released in 1930. That year, Ellington and his Orchestra connected with a whole different audience in a concert with Maurice Chevalier and they also performed at the Roseland Ballroom, "America's foremost ballroom". Australian-born composer Percy Grainger was an early admirer and supporter. He wrote "The three greatest composers who ever lived are Bach, Delius and Duke Ellington. Unfortunately Bach is dead, Delius is very ill but we are happy to have with us today The Duke".[30] Ellington's first period at the Cotton Club concluded in 1931.
The early 1930s
Ellington
led the orchestra by conducting from the keyboard using piano cues and
visual gestures; very rarely did he conduct using a baton. As a
bandleader, Ellington was not a strict disciplinarian; he maintained
control of his orchestra with a combination of charm, humor, flattery,
and astute psychology. A complex, private person, he revealed his
feelings to only his closest intimates and effectively used his public
persona to deflect attention away from himself .
Ellington signed
exclusively to Brunswick in 1932 and stayed with them through late 1936
(albeit with a short-lived 1933-34 switch to Victor when Irving Mills
temporarily moved him and his other acts from Brunswick).
As the Depression worsened, the recording industry was in crisis, dropping over 90% of its artists by 1933.[31]Ivie Anderson was hired as their featured vocalist in 1931. She is the vocalist on "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)"
(1932) among other recordings. Sonny Greer had been providing
occasional vocals and continued to do in a cross-talk feature with
Anderson. Radio exposure helped maintain popularity as Ellington and his
orchestra began to tour. The other records of this era include: "Mood Indigo" (1930), "Sophisticated Lady" (1933), "Solitude" (1934), and "In a Sentimental Mood" (1935)
While
the band's United States audience remained mainly African-American in
this period, the Ellington orchestra had a huge following overseas,
exemplified by the success of their trip to England in 1933 and their
1934 visit to the European mainland. The English visit saw Ellington win
praise from members of the "serious" music community, including
composer Constant Lambert, which gave a boost to Ellington's interest in composing longer works.
Those
longer pieces had already begun to appear. He had composed and recorded
Creole Rhapsody as early as 1931 (issued as both sides of a 12" record
for Victor and both sides of a 10" record for Brunswick), and a tribute
to his mother, "Reminiscing in Tempo", took four 10" record sides to
record in 1935 after her death in that year. Symphony in Black (also 1935), a short film, featured his extended piece 'A Rhapsody of Negro Life'. It introduced Billie Holiday, and won an Academy Award as the best musical short subject.[32] Ellington and his Orchestra also appeared in the features Murder at the Vanities and Belle of the Nineties (both 1934),
For
agent Mills the attention was a publicity triumph, as Ellington was now
internationally known. On the band's tour through the segregated South
in 1934, they avoided some of the traveling difficulties of
African-Americans by touring in private railcars. These provided easy
accommodations, dining, and storage for equipment while avoiding the
indignities of segregated facilities.
Competition was intensifying though, as swing bands like Benny Goodman's,
began to receive popular attention. Swing dancing became a youth
phenomenon, particularly with white college audiences, and
"danceability" drove record sales and bookings. Jukeboxes
proliferated nationwide, spreading the gospel of "swing." Ellington's
band could certainly swing, but their strengths were mood, nuance, and
richness of composition, hence his statement "jazz is music, swing is
business".[33]
The later 1930s
From
1936, Ellington began to make recordings of smaller groups (sextets,
octets, and nonets) drawn from his then-15-man orchestra and he composed
pieces intended to feature a specific instrumentalist, as with "Jeep's
Blues" for Johnny Hodges, "Yearning for Love" for Lawrence Brown, "Trumpet in Spades" for Rex Stewart, "Echoes of Harlem" for Cootie Williams and "Clarinet Lament" for Barney Bigard. In 1937, Ellington returned to the Cotton Club which had relocated to the mid-town Theater District.
In the summer of that year, his father died, and due to many expenses,
Ellington's finances were tight, although his situation improved the
following year.
After leaving agent Irving Mills, he signed on with the William Morris Agency.
Mills though continued to record Ellington. After only a year, his
Master and Variety labels, the small groups had recorded for the latter,
collapsed in late 1937, Mills placed Ellington back on Brunswick and
those small group units on Vocalion through to 1940. Well known sides
continued to be recorded, "Caravan" in 1937, and "I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart" the following year.
Billy Strayhorn, originally hired as a lyricist, began his association with Ellington in 1939.[34]
Nicknamed "Swee' Pea" for his mild manner, Strayhorn soon became a
vital member of the Ellington organization. Ellington showed great
fondness for Strayhorn and never failed to speak glowingly of the man
and their collaborative working relationship, "my right arm, my left
arm, all the eyes in the back of my head, my brain waves in his head,
and his in mine".[35]
Strayhorn, with his training in classical music, not only contributed
his original lyrics and music, but also arranged and polished many of
Ellington's works, becoming a second Ellington or "Duke's doppelganger".
It was not uncommon for Strayhorn to fill in for Duke, whether in
conducting or rehearsing the band, playing the piano, on stage, and in
the recording studio.[36] The 1930s ended with a very successful European tour just as World War II loomed in Europe.
Ellington in the early to mid-1940s
Duke Ellington at the Hurricane Club in New York, May 1943
Some of the musicians who joined Ellington at this time created a sensation in their own right. The short-lived Jimmy Blanton transformed the use of double bass
in jazz, allowing it to function as a solo rather than a rhythm
instrument alone. Terminal illness forced him to leave by late 1941
after only about two years. Ben Webster,
the Orchestra's first regular tenor saxophonist, whose main tenure with
Ellington spanned 1939 to 1943, started a rivalry with Johnny Hodges as
the Orchestra's foremost voice in the sax section.
Trumpeter Ray Nance joined, replacing Cootie Williams who had "defected", contemporary wags claimed, to Benny Goodman.
Additionally, Nance added violin to the instrumental colors Ellington
had at his disposal. Recordings exist of Nance's first concert date on
November 7, 1940, at Fargo, North Dakota. Privately made by Jack Towers and Dick Burris, these recordings were first legitimately issued in 1978 as Duke Ellington at Fargo, 1940 Live; they are among the earliest of innumerable live performances which survive. Nance was also an occasional vocalist, although Herb Jeffries was the main male vocalist in this era (until 1943) while Al Hibbler
(who replaced Jeffries in 1943) continued until 1951. Ivie Anderson
left in 1942 after eleven years: the longest term of any of Ellington's
vocalists.[37]
Once
again recording for Victor (from 1940), with the small groups recording
for their Bluebird label, three-minute masterpieces on 78 rpm record sides continued to flow from Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Ellington's son Mercer Ellington, and members of the Orchestra. "Cotton Tail", "Main Stem", "Harlem Airshaft", "Jack the Bear", and dozens of others date from this period. Strayhorn's "Take the "A" Train"
a hit in 1941, became the band's theme, replacing "East St. Louis
Toodle-Oo". Ellington and his associates wrote for an orchestra of
distinctive voices who displayed tremendous creativity.[38]Mary Lou Williams, working as a staff arranger, would briefly join Ellington a few years later.
Ellington's
long-term aim though was to extend the jazz form from that three-minute
limit, of which he was an acknowledged master.[39]
While he had composed and recorded some extended pieces before, such
works now became a regular feature of Ellington's output. In this, he
was helped by Strayhorn, who had enjoyed a more thorough training in the
forms associated with classical music than Ellington. The first of these, "Black, Brown, and Beige"
(1943), was dedicated to telling the story of African-Americans, and
the place of slavery and the church in their history. Ellington debuted Black, Brown and Beige in Carnegie Hall
on January 23, 1943, beginning an annual series of concerts there over
the next four years. While some jazz musicians had played at Carnegie
Hall before, none had performed anything as elaborate as Ellington’s
work. Unfortunately, starting a regular pattern, Ellington's longer
works were generally not well received.
A partial exception was Jump for Joy, a full-length musical based on themes of African-American identity, debuted on July 10, 1941 at the Mayan Theater in Los Angeles. Hollywood luminaries like actors John Garfield and Mickey Rooney invested in the production, and Charlie Chaplin and Orson Welles offered to direct.[40]
At one performance though, Garfield insisted Herb Jeffries, who was
light skinned, should wear make-up. Ellington objected in the interval,
and compared Jeffries to Al Jolson.
The change was reverted, and the singer later commented that the
audience must have thought he was an entirely different character in the
second half of the show.[41]
Although it had sold-out performances, and received positive reviews,[42]
it ran for only 122 performances until September 29, 1941, with a brief
revival in November of that year. Its subject matter did not make it
appealing to Broadway; Ellington had unfulfilled plans to take it there.[43] Despite this disappointment, a Broadway production of Ellington's Beggar's Holiday, his sole book musical, premiered on December 23, 1946[44] under the direction of Nicholas Ray.
The settlement of the first recording ban of 1942–43,
leading to an increase in royalties paid to musicians, had a serious
effect on the financial viability of the big bands, including
Ellington's Orchestra. His income as a songwriter ultimately subsidized
it. Although he always spent lavishly and drew a respectable income from
the Orchestra's operations, the band's income often just covered
expenses.[45]
Early post-war years
World
War II brought about a swift end to the big band era as musicians went
off to serve in the military and travel restrictions made touring
difficult. When the war ended, the focus of popular music shifted
towards crooners such as Frank Sinatra and Jo Stafford, so Ellington's wordless vocal feature "Transblucency" (1946) with Kay Davis
was not going to have a similar reach. With inflation setting in after
1945, the cost of hiring big bands went up and club owners preferred
smaller jazz groups who played in new styles such as bebop.
Ellington poses with his piano at the KFG Radio Studio November 3, 1954.
Ellington continued on his own course through these tectonic shifts. While Count Basie
was forced to disband his whole ensemble and work as an octet for a
time, Ellington was able to tour most of Western Europe between 6 April
and 30 June 1950, with the orchestra playing 74 dates over 77 days.[46] During the tour, according to Sonny Greer, the newer works were not performed, though Ellington's extended composition, Harlem (1950) was in the process of being completed at this time. Ellington later presented its score to music-loving President Harry Truman. Also during his time in Europe, Ellington would compose the music for a stage production by Orson Welles. Titled Time Runs in Paris[47] and An Evening With Orson Welles in Frankfurt, the variety show also featured a newly discovered Eartha Kitt, who performed Ellington's original song "Hungry Little Trouble" as Helen of Troy.[48]
In 1951, Ellington suffered a significant loss of personnel: Sonny Greer, Lawrence Brown, and most importantly Johnny Hodges left to pursue other ventures, although only Greer was a permanent departee. Drummer Louie Bellson replaced Greer, and his "Skin Deep" was a hit for Ellington. Tenor player Paul Gonsalves had joined in December 1950[46] after periods with Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie and stayed for the rest of his life, while Clark Terry joined in November 1951.[49]
During
the early 50s, Ellington's career was at a low point with his style
being generally seen as outmoded, but his reputation did not suffer as
badly as some artists. André Previn said in 1952: "You know, Stan Kenton
can stand in front of a thousand fiddles and a thousand brass and make a
dramatic gesture and every studio arranger can nod his head and say,
‘‘Oh, yes, that’s done like this.’’ But Duke merely lifts his finger,
three horns make a sound, and I don’t know what it is!"[50] However by 1955, after three years of recording for Capitol, Ellington lacked a regular recording affiliation.
Career revival
Ellington's appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival on July 7, 1956 returned him to wider prominence and introduced him to a new generation of fans. The feature "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue"
comprised two tunes that had been in the band's book since 1937 but
largely forgotten until Ellington, who had abruptly ended the band's
scheduled set because of the late arrival of four key players, called
the two tunes as the time was approaching midnight. Announcing that the
two pieces would be separated by an "interlude" played by tenor
saxophonist Paul Gonsalves,
Ellington proceeded to lead the band through the two pieces, with
Gonsalves' 27-chorus marathon solo whipping the crowd into a frenzy,
leading the Maestro to play way beyond the curfew time despite urgent
pleas from Festive organizer George Wein to bring the program to an end.
The concert made international headlines, led to one of only fiveTime magazine cover stories dedicated to a jazz musician [51] (Louis Armstrong, Thelonious Monk, Dave Brubeck, and Wynton Marsalis are the others) and resulted in an album produced by George Avakian[52] that would become the best-selling long-playing recording of Ellington's career.
Ironically
though, much of the music on the vinyl LP was, in effect, "simulated",
with only about 40% actually from the concert itself. According to
Avakian, Ellington was dissatisfied with aspects of the performance and
felt the musicians had been under rehearsed.[52]
The band assembled the next day to re-record several of the numbers
with the addition of artificial crowd noise, none of which was disclosed
to purchasers of the album. Not until 1999 was the concert recording
properly released for the first time. The revived attention brought
about by the Newport appearance should not have surprised anyone, Johnny
Hodges had returned the previous year, and Ellington's collaboration
with Strayhorn had been renewed around the same time, under terms more
amenable to the younger man.
The original Ellington at Newport album was the first release in a new recording contract with Columbia Records which yielded several years of recording stability, mainly under producer Irving Townsend, who coaxed both commercial and artistic productions from Ellington.[53]
In 1957, CBS (Columbia Records' parent corporation) aired a live television production of A Drum Is a Woman,
an allegorical suite which received mixed reviews. His hope that
television would provide a significant new outlet for his type of jazz
was not fulfilled. Tastes and trends had moved on without him. Festival
appearances at the new Monterey Jazz Festival and elsewhere provided venues for live exposure, and a European tour in 1958 was well received. Such Sweet Thunder (1957), based on Shakespeare's plays and characters, and The Queen's Suite (1958), dedicated to Britain's Queen Elizabeth II,
were products of the renewed impetus which the Newport appearance
helped to create, although the latter work was not commercially issued
at the time. The late 1950s also saw Ella Fitzgerald record her Duke Ellington Songbook
(Verve) with Ellington and his orchestra—a recognition that Ellington's
songs had now become part of the cultural canon known as the 'Great American Songbook'.
Ellington at this time (with Strayhorn) began to work directly on scoring for film soundtracks, in particular Anatomy of a Murder (1959), with James Stewart, in which Ellington appeared fronting a roadhouse combo, and Paris Blues (1961), which featured Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier as jazz musicians. Detroit Free Press music critic Mark Stryker concludes that the work of Billy Strayhorn and Ellington in Anatomy of a Murder, a trial court drama film directed by Otto Preminger, is "indispensable, [although] . . . too sketchy to rank in the top echelon among Ellington-Strayhorn masterpiece suites like Such Sweet Thunder and The Far East Suite, but its most inspired moments are their equal."[54]
Film
historians have recognized the soundtrack "as a landmark – the first
significant Hollywood film music by African Americans comprising non-diegetic
music, that is, music whose source is not visible or implied by action
in the film, like an on-screen band." The score avoided the cultural stereotypes which previously characterized jazz scores and rejected a strict adherence to visuals in ways that presaged the New Wave cinema of the ’60s".[55] Ellington and Strayhorn, always looking for new musical territory, produced suites for John Steinbeck's novel Sweet Thursday, Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite and Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt.
In
the early 1960s, Ellington embraced recording with artists who had been
friendly rivals in the past, or were younger musicians who focused on
later styles. The Ellington and Count Basie orchestras recorded together. During a period when he was between recording contracts, he made records with Louis Armstrong (Roulette), Coleman Hawkins, John Coltrane (both for Impulse) and participated in a session with Charles Mingus and Max Roach which produced the Money Jungle (United Artists) album. He signed to Frank Sinatra's new Reprise label, but the association with the label was short-lived.
Musicians who had previously worked with Ellington returned to the Orchestra as members: Lawrence Brown in 1960 and Cootie Williams in 1962.
"The
writing and playing of music is a matter of intent.... You can't just
throw a paint brush against the wall and call whatever happens art. My
music fits the tonal personality of the player. I think too strongly in
terms of altering my music to fit the performer to be impressed by
accidental music. You can't take doodling seriously."[13]
He
was now performing all over the world; a significant part of each year
was spent on overseas tours. As a consequence, he formed new working
relationships with artists from around the world, including the Swedish
vocalist Alice Babs, and the South African musicians Dollar Brand and Sathima Bea Benjamin (A Morning in Paris, 1963/1997).
Ellington wrote an original score for director Michael Langham's production of Shakespeare's Timon of Athens at the Stratford Festival
in Ontario, Canada which opened on July 29, 1963. Langham has used it
for several subsequent productions, including a much later adaptation by
Stanley Silverman which expands the score with some of Ellington's
best-known works.
Ellington was a Pulitzer Prize for Music nominee in 1965 but another nominee was selected.[56] Then 66 years old, he said: "Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn't want me to be famous too young."[57] In 1999 he was posthumously awarded a special Pulitzer Prize
(not the Music prize), "commemorating the centennial year of his birth,
in recognition of his musical genius, which evoked aesthetically the
principles of democracy through the medium of jazz and thus made an
indelible contribution to art and culture."[4][58]
In September 1965, he premiered the first of his Sacred Concerts.
He created a jazz Christian liturgy. Although the work received mixed
reviews, Ellington was proud of the composition and performed it dozens
of times. This concert was followed by two others of the same type in
1968 and 1973, known as the Second and Third Sacred Concerts. These
generated controversy in what was already a tumultuous time in the
United States. Many saw the Sacred Music suites as an attempt to
reinforce commercial support for organized religion, though Ellington
simply said it was "the most important thing I've done".[59] The Steinway piano upon which the Sacred Concerts were composed is part of the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Like Haydn and Mozart,
Ellington conducted his orchestra from the piano – he always played the
keyboard parts when the Sacred Concerts were performed.[60]
Despite
his advancing age (he turned 65 in the spring of 1964), Ellington
showed no sign of slowing down as he continued to make vital and
innovative recordings, including The Far East Suite (1966), New Orleans Suite (1970), Latin American Suite (1972) and The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse (1971), much of it inspired by his world tours. It was during this time that he recorded his only album with Frank Sinatra, entitled Francis A. & Edward K. (1967).
Although
he made two more stage appearances before his death, Ellington
performed what is considered his final "full" concert in a ballroom at Northern Illinois University on March 20, 1974.[61]
The
last three shows Ellington and his orchestra performed were one on
March 21, 1973 at Purdue University's Hall of Music and two on March 22,
1973 at the Sturges-Young Auditorium in Sturgis, Michigan.[62]
Personal life
Ellington in 1973
Ellington
married his high school sweetheart, Edna Thompson (d. 1967), on July 2,
1918, when he was 19. The next spring, on March 11, 1919, Edna gave
birth to their only son, Mercer Kennedy Ellington.
Ellington was joined in New York City by his wife and son in the late twenties, but the couple soon permanently separated.[63] According to her obituary in Jet magazine, she was "homesick for Washington" and returned (she died in 1967).[64] In 1928, Ellington became the companion of Mildred Dixon, who traveled with him, managed Tempo Music, inspired songs at the peak of his career, and reared his son Mercer.
In
1938 he left his family (his son was then 19) and moved in with
Beatrice "Evie" Ellis, a Cotton Club employee. Their relationship,
though stormy, continued after Ellington met and formed a relationship
with Fernanda de Castro Monte in the early 1960s. Ellington supported
both women for the rest of his life.[65]
Mildred Dixon - Ellington's companion; his son Mercer referred to her as his "mother"
Ellington's
sister Ruth (1915–2004) later ran Tempo Music, his music publishing
company. Ruth's second husband was the bass-baritone McHenry Boatwright, whom she met when he sang at her brother's funeral.
As
an adult, son Mercer Ellington (d. 1996) played trumpet and piano, and
led his own band. He also worked as his father's business manager,
eventually taking full control of the band after Duke's death. He was an
important archivist of his father's musical life.
Ellington died on May 24, 1974 of complications from lung cancer and pneumonia, a few weeks after his 75th birthday. His last words were, "Music is how I live, why I live and how I will be remembered."[66] At his funeral, attended by over 12,000 people at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Ella Fitzgerald summed up the occasion, "It's a very sad day. A genius has passed."[67] He was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery, The Bronx, New York City.[68]
Following Duke's death, his son Mercer took over leadership of the orchestra, continuing until his own death in 1996. Like the Count Basie Orchestra, this group continued to release albums long after Duke Ellington's death. Digital Duke, credited to The Duke Ellington Orchestra, won the 1988 Grammy Award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album.
Mercer Ellington had been handling all administrative aspects of his
father's business for several decades. Mercer's children continue a
connection with their grandfather's work.
Legacy
Memorials
The grave of Duke Ellington
Numerous memorials have been dedicated to Duke Ellington, in cities from New York and Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles.
In Ellington's birthplace, Washington, D.C., the Duke Ellington School of the Arts
educates talented students, who are considering careers in the arts, by
providing intensive arts instruction and strong academic programs that
prepare students for post-secondary education and professional careers.
Originally built in 1935, the Calvert Street Bridge was renamed the Duke Ellington Bridge in 1974.
In 1989, a bronze plaque was attached to the newly named Duke Ellington Building at 2121 Ward Place, NW.[69] In 2012, the new owner of the building commissioned a mural by Aniekan Udofia that appears above the lettering "Duke Ellington".
In
2010 the triangular park, across the street from Duke Ellington's birth
site, at the intersection of New Hampshire and M Streets, NW was named
the Duke Ellington Park.[70] Ellington's residence at 2728 Sherman Avenue, NW, during the years 1919-1922,[71] is marked by a bronze plaque.
On February 24, 2009, the United States Mint
launched a new coin featuring Duke Ellington, making him the first
African American to appear by himself on a circulating U.S. coin.[72] Ellington appears on the reverse ("tails") side of the District of Columbiaquarter.[72] The coin is part of the U.S. Mint's program honoring the District and the U.S. territories[73] and celebrates Ellington's birthplace in the District of Columbia.[72]
Ellington is depicted on the quarter seated at a piano, sheet music in
hand, along with the inscription "Justice for All", which is the
District's motto.[73]
Ellington lived for years in a townhouse on the corner of Manhattan's Riverside Drive
and West 106th Street. After his death, West 106th Street was
officially renamed Duke Ellington Boulevard. A large memorial to
Ellington, created by sculptor Robert Graham, was dedicated in 1997 in New York's Central Park, near Fifth Avenue and 110th Street, an intersection named Duke Ellington Circle.
A statue of Ellington at a piano is featured at the entrance to UCLA's Schoenberg Hall. According to UCLA Magazine:
When
UCLA students were entranced by Duke Ellington's provocative tunes at a
Culver City club in 1937, they asked the budding musical great to play a
free concert in Royce Hall. 'I've been waiting for someone to ask us!' Ellington exclaimed.
On the day of the concert, Ellington accidentally mixed up the venues and drove to USC
instead. He eventually arrived at the UCLA campus and, to apologize for
his tardiness, played to the packed crowd for more than four hours. And
so, "Sir Duke" and his group played the first-ever jazz performance in a
concert venue.[74]
Martin Williams
said: "Duke Ellington lived long enough to hear himself named among our
best composers. And since his death in 1974, it has become not at all
uncommon to see him named, along with Charles Ives, as the greatest composer we have produced, regardless of category."[75]
In the opinion of Bob Blumenthal of The Boston Globe
in 1999: "[i]n the century since his birth, there has been no greater
composer, American or otherwise, than Edward Kennedy Ellington."[76]
In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Duke Ellington on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.[77]
While his compositions are now the staple of the repertoire of music conservatories,[citation needed]
they have been revisited by artists and musicians around the world both
as a source of inspiration and a bedrock of their own performing
careers.
Dave Brubeck dedicated "The Duke" (1954) to Ellington and it became a standard covered by others,[78] both during Ellington's lifetime (such as by Miles Davis on Miles Ahead, 1957) and posthumously (such as George Shearing on I Hear a Rhapsody: Live at the Blue Note, 1992). The album The Real Ambassadors
has a vocal version of this piece, "You Swing Baby (The Duke)", with
lyrics by Iola Brubeck, Dave Brubeck's wife. It is performed as a duet
between Louis Armstrong and Carmen McRae. It is also dedicated to Duke Ellington.
Miles Davis created his half-hour dirge "He Loved Him Madly" (on Get Up with It) as a tribute to Ellington one month after his death.
Click the words "Music Folder" above to view materials relevant to the readings for this week.
This
week's music clips relate to chapters 35 and 36. Chapter 35 covers no
music, so all selections below are mentioned in Chapter 36. We pick up
with early American Blues and Jazz.
Bessie Smith, Florida-Bound Blues(chap. 36, pp. 1177-1178)
Read pp. 1177-1178 (in chap. 36) and then read the paragraph below. Bessie Smith (lived 1894-1937) recorded this blues song in the mid-1920s. See p. 1178, fig. 36.4 for a photo of her. She was known as the "Empress of the Blues"Read carefully on p. 1178 about her pioneering contributions to the blues when the genre was in its early stages.
Louis Armstrong, Hotter Than That(chap. 36, pp. 1178-1179)
Read pp. 1178-1179 (in chap. 36) carefully and then read this paragraph. Note the reason that Armstrong and other Dixieland Jazz musicians left New Orleans for Chicago and other northern cities. Notice the scat singing and the "call-and-response".
2.b. Louis Armstrong, What a Wonderful World (not in book; Armstrong is on pp. 1178-9)
Read p. 1179 (in chap. 36) carefully and then read this paragraph. This was composed by Ellington in 1931; it is the song that introduced the term "swing" to the jazz world of the day. Ellington (1899-1974) was born in Washington DC and became famous at Harlem's Cotton Club.
-------------------------------
Camilla Williams, Summertime (from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess) (Gershwin's Porgy and Bess is discussed in chap. 36, p. 1179)
From the Community Audio website at https://archive.org/details/GershwinPorgyAndBess1951 , one can listen to Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. In Act 1, Scene 1, Camilla Williams (from the 1:20 mark to the 3:30 mark) sings "Summertime". Then listen to more of this great American opera if you wish.
The date is July 30, 1914 and the situation is critical when you
receive the telegram. You are a diplomat for one of the countries
involved in the origins of World War I. Austria-Hungary has already
declared war on Serbia after receiving reassurance of full support from
Germany. Because of the alliance system, this war is not destined to
remain a small, regional flare up. Russia and Germany are about to
declare war because the Russian army has been mobilized at the German
border. Germany has plans to attack France through neutral Belgium, and
Great Britain has sworn to protect Belgium's neutrality. Belgium is
trying to make one last effort to bring the interested countries
together to avoid war.
The Process
Step1: Your team is a diplomatic advisory group representing one of the following:
1) Austro-Hungarian Empire
2) Germany
3) France
4) Great Britain
5) Russia
6) Italy, and
7) the Ottoman Empire.
Each country's team of diplomats will meet in neutral Belgium on July
31, 1914. In order to prepare for the peace conference, you and your
team must research and make an oral presentation with visuals on the
following topics as stated in the telegram:
* Background about your country including: a brief history, geographic location, alliances, and leaders
* Long term reasons explaining why your country is willing to risk going to war (events more than a year ago)
* Short term reasons explaining why your country is willing to risk going to war (events within the last year)
All students should take notes on these three topics: background, long term reasons, and short term reasons.
Step
2: After your group has made a presentation representing your country's
point of view on these topics and studied the information given by the
other countries, you will prepare and present a proposal to prevent the
war. Take into account all that you have learned from the presentations
of other countries, and try to formulate an agreement that will prevent
the war by presenting a valid compromise. This proposal should obtain
for your country what it really wants and make some concessions to other
countries
Step 3: After your country has presented its
peace proposal, the class will divide up into 4 groups with at least one
representative from each country in each group. In these new peace
negotiation groups, start by voting on the proposals from each country.
Because some countries are more powerful than others, some countries
will receive more votes: Germany (3), Great Britain (3), France (2),
Russia (2), Serbia (1), Ottoman Empire (1), Austro-Hungarian Empire (2),
Italy (1). Any country may abstain from voting. Modify the proposal
with the most votes until you reach a consensus. If you do not reach a
consensus within the class session, you will write out a declaration of
war stating the reasons why you are going to war.
Resources
Read the information that your textbook gives about the beginning of
World War I. You should also read the following background information
first:
Assassination in Sarajevo (http://www.worldwar1.com/tlsara.htm)
1879-1914: The Deadly Alliances (http://www.worldwar1.com/tlalli.htm)
The July Crisis (http://www.worldwar1.com/tlplot.htm)
Germany
Look for the answers to these questions:
* Who are your allies?
* Why does Germany support the Austro-Hungarian Empire?
* What are Germany's colonial interests?
* What are Germany's military interests, and how is Germany building up its military?
* Why is Germany an economic rival of Great Britain?
* How does Germany's competition to build up its navy put them into an arms race with
* Great Britain?
* What is the "Blank Check" that Germany gives the Austro-Hungarian Empire?
The documents below will help you:
Trenches on the Web, the War Atlas-Germany
http://www.worldwar1.com/atger.htm
May, 1882 - The Triple Alliance
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/tripally.html
The Daily Telegraph Affair 28 October, 1908
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/dailytel.html
1914 The German White Book
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/germbook.html
June-July, 1914 German Dispatches and the Kaiser's Notes
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/wilnotes.html
Autograph Letter of Franz Joseph to the Kaiser, Vienna, 2 July, 1914
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/frzwilly.html
29 July-1 August, 1914 The "Willy-Nicky" Telegrams in the original English
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/willynilly.html
July, 1914 Prince Lichownowsky's Reply to Sir Edward Grey
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/lichno.html
Kaiser Wilhelm II's Account of Events, July, 1914. From his Memoirs
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/kwiijuly.html
France
* Look for the answers to these questions:
* Who are your allies?
* What area did France have to give to Germany after the Franco-Prussian War?
* How does France plan to defend itself against Germany?
* What problem does France have with Germany in Morocco, a colony of France?
* How did France win Russia over as an ally from Germany?
The documents below will help you:
Trenches on the Web, the War Atlas-France
http://www.worldwar1.com/atfra.htm
18 August, 1892 The Franco-Russian Alliance Military Convention
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/franruss.html
My Mission to London, 1912-14 by Prince Lichnowsky
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/lichnowy.html
Great Britain
* Look for the answers to these questions:
* Who are Britain's allies?
* How does Germany's increase in battleships (Dreadnoughts) affect Britain?
* How does the industrial rivalry affect Britain's relationship with Germany?
* What treaty does Britain have to protect Belgium's neutrality?
* What imperial rivalries does Britain have with Germany in Africa?
* What are Britain's interests in the Middle East, and how does this conflict with the Ottoman Empire?
The documents below will help you:
Trenches on the Web, the War Atlas-Great Britain
http://www.worldwar1.com/ateng.htm
8-12 February, 1912 - The Haldane Mission
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/haldane.html
28 October, 1908 - The Daily Telegraph Affair
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/dailytel.html
British Imperial Connexions to the Arab Nationalist
Movement, Lord Kitchener and the Arab National Movement, 1912-1914
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/arabetuk.html
My Mission to London, 1912-14 by Prince Lichnowsky
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/lichnowy.html
31 July, 1914 Sir Edward Grey's Indecisiveness
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/greyegal.html
July, 1914 Prince Lichownowsky's Reply to Sir Edward Grey
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/lichno.html
Russia
Look for the answers to these questions:
* Who are Russia's allies?
* Why is access to the Dardanelles from the Black Sea important to Russia?
* Why is Russia allied with Serbia?
* How did Germany lose Russia as an ally and how does this affect the German war plans?
* Why is it necessary for Russia to mobilize its army so much in advance and how does Germany react?
The documents below will help you:
Trenches on the Web, the War Atlas-Russia
http://www.worldwar1.com/atrus.htm
October, 1909 - The Racconigi Bargain
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/racco.html
18 August, 1892 - The Franco-Russian Alliance Military Convention
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/franruss.html
1907 - The Anglo-Russian Entente
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/anglruss.html
1914 - The German White Book
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/germbook.html
British Imperial Connexions to the Arab Nationalist
Movement, Lord Kitchener and the Arab National Movement, 1912-1914
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/arabetuk.html
My Mission to London, 1912-14 by Prince Lichnowsky
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/lichnowy.html
28 July, 1914: The Pledge Plan
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/pledplan.html
29 July-1 August, 1914 - The "Willy-Nicky" Telegrams in the original English
http://www.lib.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/willynilly.html
July, 1914 Prince Lichownowsky's Reply to Sir Edward Grey
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/lichno.html
Austro-Hungarian Empire
Look for the answers to these questions:
* What countries is the Austro-Hungarian Empire allied with?
* What problems does the Austro-Hungarian Empire face?
* How is nationalism affecting the Austro-Hungarian Empire?
* What are the Austro-Hungarian Empireís goals in the Balkans?
* What happened in Sarajevo to bring events to a crisis and what did the Austro-Hungarian
* Empire demand of Serbia?
* Would the Austro-Hungarian Empire go to war without the help of Germany?
* How does the Austro-Hungarian Empire force Serbia into a war?
The documents below will help you:
Trenches on the Web, War Atlas Austria
http://www.worldwar1.com/athng.htm
20 May, 1882 The Triple Alliance
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/tripally.html
5 December, 1912 Expanded Version of the Triple Alliance
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/tripall2.html
September-October, 1908 The Annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/bosherz.html
6 July, 1914 - The 'Blank Check'
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/blankche.html
British Imperial Connexions to the Arab Nationalist
Movement, Lord Kitchener and the Arab National Movement, 1912-1914
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/arabetuk.html
My Mission to London, 1912-14 by Prince Lichnowsky
http://www.lib.byu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/lichnowy.html
23 July, 1914: The Austro-Hungarian Ultimatum to Serbia
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/austro-hungarian-ultimatum.html
25 July, 1914: The Serbian Response to the Austro-Hungarian Ultimatum
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/serbresponse.html
28 July, 1914: The Pledge Plan
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/pledplan.html
July 1914, Prince Lichownowsky's Reply to Sir Edward Grey
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/lichno.html
Serbia (Everyone should review this material in addition to your assigned country)
Look for the answers to these questions:
* Who are Serbia's allies?
* Why does Serbia object to the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina to Austria?
* What are the goals of the Serbian nationalist organizations?
* What is Pan-Slavism and what are its goals?
* What is Serbia's response to the ultimatum sent by the Austro-Hungarian Empire?
The documents below will help you:
Trenches on the Web, the War Atlas-Serbia
http://www.worldwar1.com/atserb.htm
September-October, 1908 The Annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/bosherz.html
1911 The Narodna Odbrana
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/odbrana.html
The Constitution of the Black Hand, 1911
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/blk-cons.html
British Imperial Connexions to the Arab Nationalist
Movement, Lord Kitchener and the Arab National Movement, 1912-1914
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/arabetuk.html
My Mission to London, 1912-14 by Prince Lichnowsky
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/lichnowy.html
23 July, 1914: The Austro-Hungarian Ultimatum to Serbia
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/austro-hungarian-ultimatum.html
25 July, 1914 - The Serbian Response to the Austro-Hungarian Ultimatum
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/serbresponse.html
July 1914 - Prince Lichownowsky's Reply to Sir Edward Grey
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914/lichno.html
Italy
Look for the answers to these questions:
* Who are Italy's allies?
* Under what conditions will Italy go to war to aid its allies? Is the Triple Alliance an offensive or defensive alliance?
* What territorial and colonial interests does Italy have in Europe,
and Africa and how might their decision to declare war be affected by
this?
* In what ways is your ally in the Triple Alliance, Austria, also your rival?
The documents below will help you:
20 May, 1882 The Triple Alliance
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/tripally.html
1914 - The Austro-Italian Naval Race
http://www.worldwar1.com/tlainr.htm
October, 1909 - The Racconigi Bargain
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/racco.html
5 December, 1912 Expanded Version of the Triple Alliance
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/tripall2.html
My Mission to London, 1912-14 by Prince Lichnowsky
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/lichnowy.html
Ottoman Empire
Look for the answers to these questions:
What is Ottoman Empire's relationship with Bosnia and other countries in the Balkans?
What strategic strait does Turkey control and why is it strategic?
What relationship does Turkey have with Great Britain in the Middle East?
The documents below will help you:
Trenches on the Web, the War Atlas-The Ottoman Empire
http://www.worldwar1.com/attur.htm
September-October, 1908 The Annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/bosherz.html
British Imperial Connexions to the Arab Nationalist
Movement, Lord Kitchener and the Arab National Movement, 1912-1914
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/arabetuk.html
My Mission to London, 1912-14 by Prince Lichnowsky
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/lichnowy.html
Preview WW I
The Twentieth-Century Crisis 1914-1945
"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."
Winston Churchill
Americans engaged in trench warfare during World War I.
War and Revolution 1914-1919
Map of Europe
An assassination in the Balkans sparked the outbreak of World War I.
Millions died during the war, which also led to a revolution and
Communist rule in Russia. The war settlements redrew the map of Europe
and imposed heavy penalties on Germany.
Military forces marched off to fight with stirring music such as the
United Forces March.
Yet, troops did not anticipate the carnage that they actually
experienced on the battle field; this was not combat that they had
learned about in school where brave, courageous young men went out to
the battlefield to prove themselves.
Canadian John McCrae
served as a military doctor on the Western Front in World War I. In
1915, McCrae wrote the following poem in the voice of those he had
watched die.
“In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.”
—Dr. John McCrae, 1915
You can hear about McCrae’s experience during World War I.
The Battle of the Somme, 3:35
An Allied offensive at the Somme River (sum) was extremely costly. In
a single grisly day, nearly 60,000 British soldiers were killed or
wounded. In the five-month battle, more than one million soldiers were
killed, without either side winning an advantage. Europe was to
experience a new kind of war.
Features real footage from the
Somme, including quotes and figures. Voted as one of the TEN BEST War
Videos on WeShow Awards, 3:35.
In-class assignment, with a partner, answer the questions.
1. How many British troops were killed on the first day?
2. At the conclusion of the battle how many casualties were there?
Animated battle of the Somme
Cf. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/launch_ani_somme_map.shtml
Audio: Chapter 16 Section 1 The Road to World War I
Competition over trade and colonies led to the formation of two rival
European alliances—the Triple Entente of Great Britain, France, and
Russia; and the Triple Alliance, consisting of Germany, Austria-Hungary,
and Italy. Repeated crises over Serbian claims on the Austro-Hungarian
region of Bosnia revealed the dangers inherent in these alliances.
Austria-Hungary, as well as numerous other European governments,
confronted challenges from minorities that wished to establish their own
national states. Strikes and violent actions by Socialist labor
movements also threatened European governments. Many states responded
with increasing militarism. The assassination of the heir to the throne
of Austria-Hungary by a Bosnian Serb militant set off a chain of
diplomatic and military decisions that led all of the great powers of
Europe into World War I.
Key Terms
conscription
mobilization
Note Taking Reading Skill: Summarize As you read, use a chart to
summarize the events that led up to the outbreak of World War I.
In-class assignment: with a partner, answer the questions.
This is a map for World War I: 1914-1918 Map, 6:41
Cf. http://ant.umn.edu/vav.php?pid=62159449393845
View the embedded player with the animated map content
WW I Map
1. Where did the spark occur?
2. Who was assassinated?
3. What were the two sides that formed?
4. What was the first country to mobilize?
5. In what year did the U.S. join the conflict?
6. Where did the Germans meet the Russians in the East?
7. In what month and year did the front line in the West stabilize?
8. In an attempt to knock Turkey out of the war where did the Allies attack?
9. Where did the Germans counterattack?
10. What was the one major naval battle of the war?
11. What British officer gained world wide fame in the Middle East?
12. What setback did the Allies suffer in 1917? The Western Front and the Eastern Front, 1914–1918
For: Interactive map
Visit: PHSchool.com
Web Code: nap-2621
Map Skills
World War I was fought on several fronts in Europe. Despite huge loss
of life and property, the two sides came to a stalemate on the Western
and Eastern fronts in 1915 and 1916.
1. Locate
(a) Paris (b) Battle of the Marne (c) Verdun (d) Tannenberg
2. Movement
Using the scale, describe how the battle lines moved on the Western Front from 1914 to 1918.
3. Draw Inferences
Based on this map, why do you think many Russians were demoralized by the progress of the war?
The Human Cost To break the stalemate on the Western Front, both the
Allies and the Central Powers launched massive offensives in 1916.
German forces tried to overwhelm the French at Verdun (vur dun). The
French defenders held firm, sending up the battle cry “They shall not
pass.” The 11-month struggle cost more than a half a million casualties,
or soldiers killed, wounded, or missing, on both sides.
Nationalism and the System of Alliances
Internal Dissent
Militarism
The Outbreak of War: Summer 1914
The Serbian Problem
A crisis began when Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary
announced that he would visit Sarajevo (sa ruh yay voh), the capital of
Bosnia. Francis Ferdinand was the nephew and heir of the aging Austrian
emperor, Francis Joseph. At the time of his visit, Bosnia was under the
rule of Austria-Hungary. But it was also the home of many Serbs and
other Slavs. News of the royal visit angered many Serbian nationalists.
They viewed the Austrians as foreign oppressors. Some members of Unity
or Death, a Serbian terrorist group commonly known as the Black Hand,
vowed to take action.
Assassination in Sarajevo
The assassin, Gavrilo Princip. Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife Sophie
The spark for World War I was the assassination of Archduke
Ferdinand. On June 28, 1914, Gavrilo Princip (gav ree loh preen tseep), a
member of a Serbian terrorist group, killed Austrian Archduke Francis
Ferdinand and his wife Sophie.
The archduke ignored warnings
of anti-Austrian unrest in Sarajevo. On June 28, 1914, he and his wife,
Sophie, rode through Sarajevo in an open car. As the car passed by, a
conspirator named Gavrilo Princip (gav ree loh preen tseep) seized his
chance and fired twice into the car. Moments later, the archduke and his
wife were dead.
“The first [bullet] struck the wife of the Archduke, the Archduchess Sofia, in the abdomen. . . . She died instantly.
The second bullet struck the Archduke close to the heart. He uttered
only one word, ’Sofia’—a call to his stricken wife. Then his head fell
back and he collapsed. He died almost instantly.”
—Borijove Jevtic, co-conspirator
The assassinations triggered World War I, called “The Great War” by people at the time.
Austria-Hungary Responds
The news of the assassination shocked Francis Joseph. Still, he was
reluctant to go to war. The government in Vienna, however, saw the
incident as an excuse to crush Serbia. In Berlin, Kaiser William II was
horrified at the assassination of his ally’s heir. He wrote to Francis
Joseph, advising him to take a firm stand toward Serbia. Instead of
urging restraint, Germany gave Austria a “blank check,” or a promise of
unconditional support no matter what the cost.
Austria sent
Serbia a sweeping ultimatum, or final set of demands. To avoid war, said
the ultimatum, Serbia must end all anti-Austrian agitation and punish
any Serbian official involved in the murder plot. It must even let
Austria join in the investigation. Serbia agreed to most, but not all,
of the terms of Austria’s ultimatum. This partial refusal gave Austria
the opportunity it was seeking. On July 28, 1914, Austria declared war
on Serbia.
Russia Mobilizes
After Austria’s
declaration of war, Serbia turned to its ally, Russia, the champion of
Slavic nations. From St. Petersburg, Nicholas II telegraphed William II.
The tsar asked the kaiser to urge Austria to soften its demands. When
this plea failed, Russia began to mobilize, or prepare its military
forces for war. On August 1, Germany responded by declaring war on
Russia.
Russia, in turn, appealed to its ally France. In
Paris, nationalists saw a chance to avenge France’s defeat in the
Franco-Prussian War. Though French leaders had some doubts, they gave
Russia the same kind of backing Germany offered to Austria. When Germany
demanded that France keep out of the conflict, France refused. Germany
then declared war on France.
The Conflict Broadens
Summary of the Conflict Broadening
The Germans’ Schlieffen (shlee fun) Plan failed for several reasons.
First, Russia mobilized more quickly than expected. After a few small
Russian victories, German generals hastily shifted some troops to the
east, weakening their forces in the west. Then, in September 1914,
British and French troops pushed back the German drive along the Marne
River. The first battle of the Marne ended Germany’s hopes for a quick
victory on the Western Front.
Reasons for the failure of the
Schlieffen Plan: Belgium, Britain, and the Eastern Front. The video
ends at the Battle of the Marne, 3:49.
In-class assignment, with a partner, answer the question.
Reading Check
Evaluating
What was the Schlieffen Plan and how did it complicate the events leading to World War I?
On
"Big Bertha" (noted in the video), named after the daughter of the
famous German gun manufacturer, Krupp, a word can be added. Although the
super-heavy artillery was fearsome, and Parisian civilians were killed,
the howitzer proved largely ineffective and played a smaller role in
the Schlieffen advance than the Germans had hoped The Encyclopedia of Weaponry: The Development of Weaponry from Prehistory to 21st Century Warfare, Ian V. Hogg, p. 123.
Graphic source: Wikipedia Commons
The War
Most people in 1914 believed that the war would end quickly. The
picture changed, though, as trench warfare between France and Germany
turned into a stalemate and casualties mounted throughout Europe. Italy
switched sides, and the Ottoman Empire joined the war on the side of the
Triple Alliance. The war broadened further when German colonies came
under attack and the British encouraged Ottoman provinces in the Middle
East to revolt. The United States entered the war in 1917 in response to
the German use of submarines against passenger ships. As the war
dragged on, governments took control of national economies, censored the
news media, and used propaganda to bolster public opinion. Women
entered the workforce in large numbers. After the war, many lost their
jobs to men but gained expanded rights and status. By 1921 women had the
vote in Austria, Germany, Great Britain, and the United States.
Key Terms
propaganda
trench warfare
war of attrition
total war
planned economies
1914 to 1915: Illusions and Stalemate
Propaganda of World War I, 2:35
These are some recruitment and propaganda posters from England and
France during World War I. The song: "Boys in Khaki, Boys in Blue,"
means British and French soldiers.
WW 1 PROPAGANDA POSTERS(UK), 5:32
Each
of the nations which participated in World War One from 1914-18 used
propaganda posters not only as a means of justifying involvement to
their own populace, but also as a means of procuring men, money and
resources to sustain the military campaign.
In countries
such as Britain the use of propaganda posters was readily
understandable: in 1914 she only possessed a professional army and did
not have in place a policy of national service, as was standard in other
major nations such as France and Germany.
The Western Front
Cf. http://www.phschool.com/webcodes10/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.gotoWebCode&wcprefix=nap&wcsuffix=2621
American Battle Monuments Cemetery in Aisne Marne, France, 2:00
This video presents a brief narrated tour of Aisne-Marne American Cemetery's landscaped grounds, architecture, and works of art.
The 42.5-acre Aisne-Marne Cemetery and Memorial in France, its
headstones lying in a sweeping curve, sits at the foot of the hill where
stands Belleau Wood. The cemetery contains the graves of 2,289 war
dead, most of whom fought in the vicinity and in the Marne valley in the
summer of 1918. The memorial chapel sits on a hillside, decorated with
sculptured and stained-glass details of wartime personnel, equipment and
insignia. Inscribed on its interior wall are 1,060 names of the
missing. Rosettes mark the names of those since recovered and
identified. During World War II, the chapel was damaged slightly by an
enemy shell.
Belleau Wood adjoins the cemetery and contains
many vestiges of World War I. A monument at the flagpole commemorates
the valor of the U.S. Marines who captured much of this ground in 1918.
The Eastern Front
On Europe’s Eastern Front, battle lines shifted back and forth,
sometimes over large areas. Even though the armies were not mired in
trench warfare, casualties rose even higher than on the Western Front.
The results were just as indecisive.
In August 1914, Russian
armies pushed into eastern Germany. Then, the Russians suffered a
disastrous defeat at Tannenberg, causing them to retreat back into
Russia. As the least industrialized of the great powers, Russia was
poorly equipped to fight a modern war. Some troops even lacked rifles.
Still, Russian commanders continued to send masses of soldiers into
combat.
In the first scene, Paul Baumer (Richard Thomas) is chastised by his
teacher (Donald Pleasence) for lack of attention in class, (specifically
for furtively making a sketch of a small bird). He is ridiculed as an
'idealist' and a 'dreamer.'
In the final trench scene, Paul
sympathetically chivvies his exhausted soldiers into staying alert for
their own safety. Yet moments later he himself becomes (fatally)
distracted by a small bird, the same symbol of beauty that had so
irritated his mentor three years previously. Other ironic subtleties
reveal themselves here. Paul now seeks solace in smoking, a habit he had
until now totally despised. (Recall how he had haughtily rejected his
teacher's proffering of a cigarette!). Even this actor's distinctive
facial mole acquires significance. Devoid of any disguising make-up, it
disturbs as an appalling disfigurement on an otherwise handsome face, a
subtle symbol perhaps of the Great War's brutal despoiling of a whole
generation of Europe's 'Golden Youth'. Most tellingly, the movie links
the image of Paul's drawings as the metaphor for the idealism of the new
generation, a hope that died with Paul in the mud of those hellish
trenches.
If you enjoyed this excerpt, you may enjoy the entire film.
The horror of war during the great slaughter of World War I is
illustrated by one of the most famous novels from the Great War; this is
a film version of "All Quiet on the Western Front" (1979), 6:01.
A worksheet is available to:
First part of a short film describing various aspects of trench
warfare. Presented by Oxford University's First World War Poetry Digital
Archive project.
This is a brief demo Eagle Films created for a War museum concerning
the brutal and bloody WW-I battle of Verdun. It was one of about twenty
multimedia projects that were to be produced under the supervision of
Philip Cook of Eagle Films.
War in the Air
Interrupter gear, invented by the Frenchman Roland Garros but later perfected with deadly accuracy by Germany.
Diagram of German machine gun synchronisation gear.
To fire the gun,
1. The gun's crank is worked twice, once to load, once to cock.
2. The green handle is pulled
3. which lowers the red cam follower onto the cam wheel.
4. When the cam raises the follower, the blue rod is pushed against the spring.
5. When the pilot presses the purple firing button, inside the breech block the cable lowers the blue bridge piece
6. so that when the blue rod is activated by the cam, the yellow trigger bar is pushed
7. and the gun fires.
Graphic source: Wikipedia Commons
During
World War I, advances in technology, such as the gasoline-powered
engine, led the opposing forces to use tanks, airplanes, and submarines
against each other. In 1916, Britain introduced the first armored tank.
Mounted with machine guns, the tanks were designed to move across no
man’s land. Still, the first tanks broke down often. They failed to
break the stalemate.
Both sides also used aircraft. At
first, planes were utilized simply to observe enemy troop movements. In
1915, Germany used zeppelins (zep uh linz), large gas-filled balloons,
to bomb the English coast. Later, both sides equipped airplanes with
machine guns. Pilots known as “flying aces” confronted each other in the
skies. These “dogfights” were spectacular, but had little effect on the
course of the war on the ground.
Captain Albert Ball before his death at 20 years of age.
Graphic source: Wikipedia Commons
Albert Ball, 1:40
The young Englishman's early career is profiled. Paying for his own
lessons, Ball learns to fly and is approved for service in the Royal
Flying Corps.
The Battle of The Somme begins and the early career of Albert Ball is profiled, 5:16
Albert Ball (14 August 1896 – 7 May 1917) was an English First World
War fighter pilot and recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest
decoration for gallantry "in the face of the enemy" that can be awarded
to members of the British or Commonwealth armed forces. At the time of
his death, he was twenty years old and he was the leading Allied ace
with 44 victories, second only to German ace Manfred Von Richthofen. By
the end of the war he was the United Kingdom's fourth top scoring ace.
Richthofen - A German Legend - The Red Baron, 1:46
Richthofen - The Red Baron
A German Legend
Footage & Soundtrack:
Der Rote Baron (Germany 2008)
Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (2 May 1892 - 21 April 1918)
was a German fighter pilot known as the "Red Baron". He was the most
successful flying ace during World War I, being officially credited with
80 confirmed air combat victories. He served in the Imperial German
Army Air Service (Luftstreitkräfte). Richthofen was a member of an
aristocratic family with many famous relatives.
Freiherr
(literally "Free Lord") is not a given name but a German aristocratic
title, equivalent to a baron in other countries and the origin of
Richthofen's most famous nickname: "The Red Baron". Red was the colour
of his plane. The German translation of The Red Baron is About this
sound "Der Rote Baron" . Richthofen is today known by this nickname even
in Germany, although during his lifetime he was more often described in
German as Der Rote Kampfflieger, (variously translated as the The Red
Battle Flyer or The Red Fighter Pilot). This name was used as the title
of Richthofen's 1917 "autobiography."
Richthofen's other nicknames
include "Le Diable Rouge" ("Red Devil") or "Le Petit Rouge" ("Little
Red") in French, and the "Red Knight" in English.
World War 1 Aircraft - Sopwith Camel F.1, 1:16
The Sopwith Camel is probably one of the most famous British fighters
of the war, in addition to the SE5a simply because it was one of their
first superior fighters of the war. The Camel was dreaded by most
Entente pilots, however. It was fast and maneuverable, but the upper
wing had numerous problems and tendencies to shear off entirely and
plunge the airframe into the ground (and this caused the death of many
pilots), and torque was so great to the left side of the plane that it
was sometimes rendered unable to fly altogether. It was dangerous for
both novice and seasoned pilots to fly, any many died trying to tame the
beast.
Why were military leaders baffled by trench warfare?
Widening of the War
Though most of the fighting took place in Europe, World War I was a
global conflict. Japan, allied with Britain, used the war as an excuse
to seize German outposts in China and islands in the Pacific.
Gallipoli
Because of its strategic location, the Ottoman empire was a desirable
ally. If the Ottoman Turks had joined the Allies, the Central Powers
would have been almost completely encircled. However, the Turks joined
the Central Powers in late October 1914. The Turks then cut off crucial
Allied supply lines to Russia through the Dardanelles, a vital strait
connecting the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.
In 1915, the
Allies sent a massive force of British, Indian, Australian, and New
Zealander troops to attempt to open up the strait. At the battle of
Gallipoli (guh lip uh lee), Turkish troops trapped the Allies on the
beaches of the Gallipoli peninsula. In January 1916, after 10 months and
more than 200,000 casualties, the Allies finally withdrew from the
Dardanelles.
Gallipoli trailer (Mel Gibson), 1:44
Lawrence of Arabia
Gene Siskel & Roger Ebert discuss the 1962 Oscar-winning First World War film Lawrence of Arabia, 4:45.
The Turks were harmed severely in the Middle East. The Ottoman empire
included vast areas of Arab land. In 1916, Arab nationalists led by
Husayn ibn Ali (hoo sayn ib un ah lee) declared a revolt against Ottoman
rule. The British government sent Colonel T. E. Lawrence—later known as
Lawrence of Arabia—to support the Arab revolt. Lawrence led guerrilla
raids against the Turks, dynamiting bridges and supply trains.
Eventually, the Ottoman empire lost a great deal of territory to the
Arabs, including the key city of Baghdad. Entry of the United States
Cf. http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/activities/songs/
In-class assignment, with a partner, answer the question.
Reading Check
Evaluating
Why did the Germans resort to unrestricted submarine use?
The broad impact of the Industrial Revolution resulted in both gains
and losses. There was more food, medicine, clothing, more of everything,
yet, the new technologies extinguished "life as effectively as they
could be used to support it" (Boot, p. 198).
The Industrial
Revolution did not cause WW I yet indirectly it "fostered the rise of
Germany" (Boot, p. 198). "The figures boggle the mind:
from 1914 to 1918, sixty three million were seriously wounded or disabled.
Millions of civilians also died. . . . they were many orders of
magnitude greater than those of any previous conflict. Pre-industrial
states could not possibly have fed, clothed, equipped, moved--or
slaughtered--so many individuals. Germany and France had 20 percent of
their populations under arms. Britain mobilized only 13 percent, but
this was still far higher than the 7 percent that Napoleon had been able
to marshal with the levee en masse" (Boot, p. 198). Each soldier in addition had far more firepower than an entire regiment possessed a century earlier.
Increased Government Powers
Planned economies were necessary to fuel the increased demands of
total war (Boot, p. 199). The pre-industrial state was not equal to the
task of equipping and arming such large armies that were required in
modern warfare. Governments nationalized industries along with the
cooperation of major private companies. In Britain, France, and Germany,
military spending shot up 2,000 percent (Boot, p. 199).
Manipulation of Public Opinion
Public dissent was not encouraged. A military dictatorship controlled
Germany but even in the liberty-loving U.S. antiwar activists such as
the socialist Eugene Debs was subject to arrest and confinement (Boot,
p. 199).
Total war also meant controlling public opinion.
Even in democratic countries, special boards censored the press. Their
aim was to keep complete casualty figures and other discouraging news
from reaching the public. Government censors also restricted popular
literature, historical writings, motion pictures, and the arts.
Both sides waged a propaganda war. Propaganda is the spreading of
ideas to promote a cause or to damage an opposing cause. Governments
used propaganda to motivate military mobilization, especially in Britain
before conscription started in 1916. In France and Germany, propaganda
urged civilians to loan money to the government. Later in the war,
Allied propaganda played up the brutality of Germany’s invasion of
Belgium. The British and French press circulated tales of atrocities,
horrible acts against innocent people. Although some atrocities did
occur, often the stories were distorted by exaggerations or completely
made up.
Total War and Women
Women gained more
rights as they took jobs previously open only to men (Boot, p. 200). It
is not surprising that not long after the war women were granted the
right of suffrage.
Women played a critical role in total
war. As millions of men left to fight, women took over their jobs and
kept national economies going. Many women worked in war industries,
manufacturing weapons and supplies. Others joined women’s branches of
the armed forces. When food shortages threatened Britain, volunteers in
the Women’s Land Army went to the fields to grow their nation’s food.
Nurses shared the dangers of the men whose wounds they tended. At aid
stations close to the front lines, nurses often worked around the
clock, especially after a big “push” brought a flood of casualties. In
her diary, English nurse Vera Brittain describes sweating through
90-degree days in France, “stopping hemorrhages, replacing intestines,
and draining and reinserting innumerable rubber tubes” with “gruesome
human remnants heaped on the floor.”
War work gave women a
new sense of pride and confidence. After the war, most women had to give
up their jobs to men returning home. Still, they had challenged the
idea that women could not handle demanding and dangerous jobs. In many
countries, including Britain, Germany, and the United States, women’s
support for the war effort helped them finally win the right to vote,
after decades of struggle.
Laissez-faire economic structures
did not survive World War I. Social hierarchies broke down under the
transformation. Women were granted the right to vote. World War I is "a
conflict that could never have been waged on such a titanic,
transformative scale were it not for the changes in warfare that had
occurred in the previous half-century. This was the bittersweet legacy
of the Industrial Age (Boot, p. 201).
In-class assignment, with a partner, answer the question.
Reading Check
Summarizing
What was the effect of total war on ordinary citizens?
People in History
Edith Cavell
Like most ordinary people caught up in war, Edith Cavell (1865–1915)
did not plan on becoming a hero. An English nurse, she was in charge of a
hospital in Belgium. After the German invasion, Cavell cared for
wounded soldiers on both sides. She also helped Allied soldiers escape
to the Netherlands.
In 1915, the Germans arrested Cavell for
spying. As she faced a firing squad, her last reported words were,
“Standing as I do in view of God and Eternity, I realize that patriotism
is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness toward anyone.” Why
do you think the British government spread the story of Edith Cavell?
The Lusitania
Germany used U-boats to create its own blockade. In 1915, Germany
declared that it would sink all ships carrying goods to Britain. In May
1915, a German submarine torpedoed the British liner Lusitania off the
coast of Ireland. Almost 1,200 passengers were killed, including 128
Americans. Germany justified the attack, arguing that the Lusitania was
carrying weapons. When American President Woodrow Wilson threatened to
cut off diplomatic relations with Germany, though, Germany agreed to
restrict its submarine campaign. Before attacking any ship, U-boats
would surface and give warning, allowing neutral passengers to escape to
lifeboats. Unrestricted submarine warfare stopped—for the moment.
Preview:
The Russian Revolution
Key Terms
soviets
war communism
Background to Revolution
“Mr. War Minister!
We, soldiers from various regiments,. . . ask you to end the war and
its bloodshed at any cost…. If this is not done, then believe us when we
say that we will take our weapons and head out for our own hearths to
save our fathers, mothers, wives, and children from death by starvation
(which is nigh). And if we cannot save them, then we’d rather die with
them in our native lands then be killed, poisoned, or frozen to death
somewhere and cast into the earth like a dog.”
—Letter from the front, 1917
Note Taking
Reading Skill: Summarize Copy the time line below and fill it in as
you read this section. When you finish, write two sentences that
summarize the information in your time line.
Beginnings of Upheaval
The year 1913 marked the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty.
Everywhere, Russians honored the tsar and his family. Tsarina Alexandra
felt confident that the people loved Nicholas too much to ever threaten
him. “They are constantly frightening the emperor with threats of
revolution,” she told a friend, “and here,—you see it yourself—we need
merely to show ourselves and at once their hearts are ours.”
Appearances were deceiving. In March 1917, the first of two revolutions
would topple the Romanov dynasty and pave the way for even more radical
changes.
The outbreak of war in 1914 fueled national pride
and united Russians. Armies dashed to battle with enthusiasm. But like
the Crimean and Russo-Japanese wars, World War I quickly strained
Russian resources. Factories could not turn out enough supplies. The
transportation system broke down, delivering only a trickle of crucial
materials to the front. By 1915, many soldiers had no rifles and no
ammunition. Badly equipped and poorly led, they died in staggering
numbers. In 1915 alone, Russian casualties reached two million.
Vocabulary Builder
crucial—(kroo shul) adj. of vital importance
In a patriotic gesture, Nicholas II went to the front to take
personal charge. The decision proved a disastrous blunder. The tsar was
no more competent than many of his generals. Worse, he left domestic
affairs to the tsarina, Alexandra. In Nicholas’ absence, Alexandra
relied on the advice of Gregory Rasputin, an illiterate peasant and
self-proclaimed “holy man.” The tsarina came to believe that Rasputin
had miraculous powers after he helped her son, who suffered from
hemophilia, a disorder in which any injury can result in uncontrollable
bleeding.
Rasputin
By 1916, Rasputin’s influence over Alexandra had reached new heights
and weakened confidence in the government. Fearing for the monarchy, a
group of Russian nobles killed Rasputin on December 29, 1916.
The March Revolution
By March 1917, disasters on the battlefield, combined with food and
fuel shortages on the home front, brought the monarchy to collapse. In
St. Petersburg (renamed Petrograd during the war), workers were going on
strike. Marchers, mostly women, surged through the streets, shouting,
“Bread! Bread!” Troops refused to fire on the demonstrators, leaving the
government helpless. Finally, on the advice of military and political
leaders, the tsar abdicated.
Duma politicians then set up a
provisional, or temporary, government. Middle-class liberals in the
government began preparing a constitution for a new Russian republic. At
the same time, they continued the war against Germany.
Outside the provisional government, revolutionary socialists plotted
their own course. In Petrograd and other cities, they set up soviets, or
councils of workers and soldiers. At first, the soviets worked
democratically within the government. Before long, though, the
Bolsheviks, a radical socialist group, took charge. The leader of the
Bolsheviks was a determined revolutionary, V. I. Lenin.
The
revolutions of March and November 1917 are known to Russians as the
February and October revolutions. In 1917, Russia still used an old
calendar, which was 13 days behind the one used in Western Europe.
Russia adopted the Western calendar in 1918.
In-class assignment, with a partner, answer the question.
Reading Check
Identifying
Develop a sequence of events leading to the March Revolution.
The Rise of Lenin
Lenin
Vladimir
Ilyich Ulyanov (ool yahn uf) was born in 1870 to a middle-class family.
He adopted the name Lenin when he became a revolutionary. When he was
17, his older brother was arrested and hanged for plotting to kill the
tsar. The execution branded his family as a threat to the state and made
the young Vladimir hate the tsarist government.
A Brilliant Revolutionary
As a young man, Lenin read the works of Karl Marx and participated in
student demonstrations. He spread Marxist ideas among factory workers
along with other socialists, including Nadezhda Krupskaya (nah dyez duh
kroop sky uh), the daughter of a poor noble family. In 1895, Lenin and
Krupskaya were arrested and sent to Siberia. During their imprisonment,
they were married. After their release, they went into exile in
Switzerland. There they worked tirelessly to spread revolutionary ideas.
Lenin’s View of Marx
Lenin adapted Marxist ideas to fit Russian conditions. Marx had
predicted that the industrial working class would rise spontaneously to
overthrow capitalism. But Russia did not have a large urban proletariat.
Instead, Lenin called for an elite group to lead the revolution and set
up a “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Though this elite revolutionary
party represented a small percentage of socialists, Lenin gave them the
name Bolsheviks, meaning “majority.”
In Western Europe,
many leading socialists had come to think that socialism could be
achieved through gradual and moderate reforms such as higher wages,
increased suffrage, and social welfare programs. A group of socialists
in Russia, the Mensheviks, favored this approach. The Bolsheviks
rejected it. To Lenin, reforms of this nature were merely capitalist
tricks to repress the masses. Only revolution, he said, could bring
about needed changes.
In March 1917, Lenin was still in
exile. As Russia stumbled into revolution, Germany saw a chance to
weaken its enemy by helping Lenin return home. Lenin rushed across
Germany to the Russian frontier in a special train. He greeted a crowd
of fellow exiles and activists with this cry: “Long live the worldwide
Socialist revolution!”
Biography
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Lenin (1870–1924) was the son of a teacher and his wife who lived in a
little town on the Volga River. Vladimir lived with his parents and
five siblings in a rented wing of a large house. By all accounts it was a
happy home. Vladimir excelled at school and looked up to his older
brother Alexander. But when Vladimir was 16, his father died. When he
was 17, his beloved brother Alexander was hanged for plotting to kill
the tsar.
Still reeling from the death of his brother,
Vladimir enrolled at Kazan University. There he met other discontented
young people. They united to protest the lack of student freedom in the
university. Within three months, Vladimir was expelled for his part in
the demonstrations. How do you think Lenin’s early life affected his
later political ideas?
In-class assignment, with a partner, answer the question.
Reading Check
Examining
What was Lenin's plan when he arrived in Russia?
The Bolsheviks Seize Power
Lenin threw himself into the work of furthering the revolution.
Another dynamic Marxist revolutionary, Leon Trotsky, helped lead the
fight. To the hungry, war-weary Russian people, Lenin and the Bolsheviks
promised “Peace, Land, and Bread.”
The Provisional Government’s Mistakes
Meanwhile, the provisional government, led by Alexander Kerensky,
continued the war effort and failed to deal with land reform. Those
decisions proved fatal. Most Russians were tired of war. Troops at the
front were deserting in droves. Peasants wanted land, while city workers
demanded an end to the desperate shortages. In July 1917, the
government launched the disastrous Kerensky offensive against Germany.
By November, according to one official report, the army was “a huge
crowd of tired, poorly clad, poorly fed, embittered men.” Growing
numbers of troops mutinied. Peasants seized land and drove off fearful
landlords.
The Bolshevik Takeover
Conditions
were ripe for the Bolsheviks to make their move. In November 1917,
squads of Red Guards—armed factory workers—joined mutinous sailors from
the Russian fleet in attacking the provisional government. In just a
matter of days, Lenin’s forces overthrew the provisional government
without a struggle.
The Bolsheviks quickly seized power in
other cities. In Moscow, it took a week of fighting to blast the local
government out of the walled Kremlin, the former tsarist center of
government. Moscow became the Bolsheviks’ capital, and the Kremlin their
headquarters.
“We shall now occupy ourselves in Russia in
building up a proletarian socialist state,” declared Lenin. The
Bolsheviks ended private ownership of land and distributed land to
peasants. Workers were given control of the factories and mines. A new
red flag with an entwined hammer and sickle symbolized union between
workers and peasants. Throughout the land, millions thought they had at
last gained control over their own lives. In fact, the
Bolsheviks—renamed Communists—would soon become their new masters.
In-class assignment, with a partner, answer the question.
Reading Check
Describing
What was the impact of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on Russia?
Civil War in Russia
After the Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin quickly sought peace with
Germany. Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918, giving
up a huge chunk of its territory and its population. The cost of peace
was extremely high, but the Communist leaders knew that they needed all
their energy to defeat a collection of enemies at home. Russia’s
withdrawal affected the hopes of both the Allies and the Central Powers,
as you read in Section 3.
Vocabulary Builder
withdrawal—(with draw ul) n. the act of leaving
Opposing Forces
For three years, civil war raged between the “Reds,” as the
Communists were known, and the counterrevolutionary “Whites.” The
“White” armies were made up of tsarist imperial officers, Mensheviks,
democrats, and others, all of whom were united only by their desire to
defeat the Bolsheviks. Nationalist groups from many of the former
empire’s non-Russian regions joined them in their fight. Poland,
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania broke free, but nationalists in Ukraine,
the Caucasus, and Central Asia were eventually subdued.
The
Allies intervened in the civil war. They hoped that the Whites might
overthrow the Communists and support the fight against Germany. Britain,
France, and the United States sent forces to help the Whites. Japan
seized land in East Asia that tsarist Russia had once claimed. The
Allied presence, however, did little to help the Whites. The Reds
appealed to nationalism and urged Russians to drive out the foreigners.
In the long run, the Allied invasion fed Communist distrust of the West.
Brutality was common in the civil war. Counterrevolutionary forces
slaughtered captured Communists and tried to assassinate Lenin. The
Communists shot the former tsar and tsarina and their five children in
July 1918 to keep them from becoming a rallying symbol for
counterrevolutionary forces.
Identifying
Who opposed the new Bolshevik regime?
Triumph of the Communists
The Communists used terror not only against the Whites, but also to
control their own people. They organized the Cheka, a secret police
force much like the tsar’s. The Cheka executed ordinary citizens, even
if they were only suspected of taking action against the revolution. The
Communists also set up a network of forced-labor camps in 1919—which
grew under Stalin into the dreaded Gulag.
The Communists
adopted a policy known as “war communism.” They took over banks, mines,
factories, and railroads. Peasants in the countryside were forced to
deliver almost all of their crops to feed the army and hungry people in
the cities. Peasant laborers were drafted into the military or forced to
work in factories.
Meanwhile, Trotsky turned the Red Army
into an effective fighting force. He used former tsarist officers under
the close watch of commissars, Communist party officials assigned to the
army to teach party principles and ensure party loyalty. Trotsky’s
passionate speeches roused soldiers to fight. So did the order to shoot
every tenth man if a unit performed poorly.
The Reds’
position in the center of Russia gave them a strategic advantage. The
White armies were forced to attack separately from all sides. They were
never able to cooperate effectively with one another. By 1921, the
Communists had managed to defeat their scattered foes.
In-class assignment, with a partner, answer the question.
Reading Check
Contrasting
Why did the Red Army prevail over the White Army?
War and Revolution in Russia 1914 - 1921 by Dr Jonathan Smele
The Great War #1, World War 1 Era Period Music and Pictures. WW 1
spanned from August of 1914 to November of 1918 and raged across the
globe. The United States was officially involved in the war from April
1917 to the end.
The dough boys are nearly forgotten today
in the shadow of World War 2, Vietnam and Iraq. Millions of American men
and women, black and white, served our country in The Great War. This
series of shorts shows the music of their time and photographs from the
Great War.
Links
BBC Schools Links
GCSE Bitesize Revision - History
bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/
A secondary revision resource for GCSE exams covering the First World War.
The Bitesize series features audio clips from history and commentators:
Standard Grade Bitesize Revision - History
bbc.co.uk/scotland/learning/bitesize/standard/history/
A secondary revision resource for Standard Grade covering the First World War.
BBC Sites
BBC History - World War One
bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/
This World War One site from BBC History features interactive movies, animations, feature articles and 3-d models.
History Trail – How to do History
bbc.co.uk/history/lj/how_to_do_historylj/preview.shtml
Follow in the footsteps of professional historians and find out how
they do history. Discover how postcards, council records, tapestries and
people's memories of the past are all valuable sources for the
historian.
Other Sites
Learning Curve – The Great War
http://www.learningcurve.gov.uk/greatwar
This is a comprehensive offering from the Public Records Office,
which tells the story of the First World War through six different
source based investigations. It aims to show how the War developed and
includes teachers' notes.
Spartacus Educational – The First World War
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWW.htm
Spartacus' World War One website offers a growing encyclopaedia of entries about the war, as well as links to other websites.
First World War.com - The war to end all wars
http://www.firstworldwar.com
This site gives a general overview of the First World War. It offers a
collection of insightful feature articles, photos and footage, memoirs
and diaries.
Spark Notes – World War 1 (1914-1918)
http://www.sparknotes.com/history/european/ww1/
Gives a summary and commentary on each main study area of the First World War.
Art of the First World War
http://www.art-ww1.com/gb/present.html
Presents 100 paintings from international collections from around the world to commemorate the First World War.
The World War One Document Archive
http://www.art-ww1.com/gb/present.html
The World War One Document Archive presents primary documents concerning the Great War.
World War 1 - Web Links
http://www.historyteacher.net/APEuroCourse/WebLinks/WebLinks-WorldWar1.htm
This site lists links to in-depth articles on all aspects of the
First World War, including a large collection of links to primary source
material.
National Curriculum Online: History
http://curriculum.qcda.gov.uk/key-stages-3-and-4/subjects/history/index.aspx?return=/key-stages-3-and-4/subjects/index.aspx
Information about the National Curriculum for History, QCDA and DfEE
schemes of work, pupils' work and information about standards and
support materials.
QCDA History
http://www.qcda.gov.uk/6354.aspx
The Qualifications and Curriculum Development Authority (QCDA) History section.
Examine key issues with the help of original documents.
In
1966, the "Ace" was immortalized in song by the Royal Guardsmen with
their hit, Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron. This was followed in 1967 by Return
of the Red Baron, in which it is revealed that the Baron survived their
previous encounter but runs away when Snoopy challenges him to a duel
with pistols, and then by Snoopy's Christmas, in which the two foes
temporarily set aside their differences for a Christmas toast, as per
the Christmas Truces that occurred during World War I. Snoopy's
Christmas continues to be played as a holiday favorite on many oldies
radio stations.
During the 1968 U.S. Presidential election, the
Guardsmen released two additional songs, "Snoopy for President", in
which Snoopy's bid for the nomination of the Beagle party is tipped in
his favor by the Red Baron, and "Down Behind the Lines", which does not
mention Snoopy specifically but describes the attempts of a World War I
pilot to fly his damaged Sopwith Camel back to friendly territory.
In
2006 the Guardsmen recorded a song called "Snoopy vs. Osama" in which
Snoopy shifts his focus away from The Red Baron and captures Osama Bin
Laden.
The group from Ocala, FL with the British moniker rose to fame in
1966 with its single, “Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron,” which became the title
track of its debut album. The album reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot
100 Chart and remained there for 12 weeks. It went on to sell one
million copies, earning it gold certification from the R.I.A.A. in 1967.
https://youtu.be/Oxzg_iM-T4E
Reading Check
Identifying
Did the growth of nationalism in the first half of the nineteenth
century lead to increased competition or increased cooperation among
European nations?
Reading Check
Explaining
According to some historians, how might internal disorder have been one of the causes of World War I? Test/Quiz Resources
People, Places and Events
Barry McGuire - Eve of Destruction 1965, 4:01
Eve
of Destruction was written by 19-year-old songwriter P. F. Sloan in
1965 and eventually became Barry McGuire's one and only big Billboard
chart hit song.
DISCUSSION
"Streaming
Live and Harlem Renaissance" Please respond to one (1) of the
following, using sources under the Explore heading as the basis of your
response:
Write for one (1) minute using the stream of
consciousness writing method (Note: You may also type it offline and
copy it within this discussion thread). Describe your experience and
your reaction to what you wrote. Of the samples of the stream of
consciousness technique given in this week's chapters, determine which
you prefer and explain the reasons why.
Of the various authors,
artists, and musicians who participated in the Harlem Renaissance,
identify the person whose autograph you would most want, and explain the
reasons why. Provide one (1) example that illustrates the reason why
you selected the person that you did.
Explore:
Streaming Live
Chapter 35 (pp. 1163-1166); Chapter 36 (p. 1189), stream of consciousness – background and samples
Method and exploration of stream-of-consciousness writing at http://dversepoets.com/2012/05/24/stream-of-conscousness-writing/
Writing a stream: http://thewritepractice.com/stream-of-consciousness/ and http://literarydevices.net/stream-of-consciousness/
Harlem Renaissance
Chapter
36 (pp. 1172-1180); review the Week 8 “Music Folder” Website and video
at http://www.history.com/topics/harlem-renaissance
