Monthly Archives: November 2023

Though her recording career spanned only 10 years, “Empress of the Blues” Bessie Smith had a huge influence on American music. This 2019 NPR interview includes parts of her first record, “Downhearted Blues”, with Maureen Mahon’s explanation of how Smith … Continue reading →

Buster Keaton stars as a hapless aspiring newsreel maker with eyes for Marceline Day in The Cameraman, his first film for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The National Film Registry made this movie one of its honorees in 2005, calling it “the last of … Continue reading →

Margaret Mead spent several months in Samoa researching her book Coming of Age in Samoa, a groundbreaking bestseller joining the public domain in 34 days. After Mead died, her reports of the sex lives of Samoan adolescents were disputed by … Continue reading →

W. E. B. Du Bois, famous for nonfiction like The Souls of Black Folk and The Philadelphia Negro, also wrote fiction. His 1928 novel Dark Princess: A Romance is described by its current publisher as a “novel of sensual love, … Continue reading →

Harvard geologist Kirtley F. Mather was an activist for academic freedom (advocating for teaching evolution and against faculty loyalty oaths) and president of Promoting Enduring Peace. Kennard B. Bork writes in GSA Today that he had a “deep belief in … Continue reading →

“…Saw you not at the beginning of evening the antlered buck and his doeStanding in the apple-orchard? I saw them. I saw them suddenly go… …Now lies he here, his wild blood scalding the snow.” The title poem of Edna … Continue reading →

Copyrights weren’t often renewed on advertisements, but a few were for various reasons. Deward and Rich renewed many of their “Miss Flora” ads after a court battle over a local florist reusing them without permission. Sometimes objectors to ads also … Continue reading →

In Sydney Fowler Wright’s Deluge, earthquakes and floods destroy most of civilization, but a small population in England survives. The post-apocalyptic novel is as much about criticizing present-day society as it is about the future society it depicts. A film … Continue reading →

After Rose Sellars’ husband dies, she and Martin Boyne can finally appropriately act on their feelings for each other. But while en route to meet with his now-fiancée, Martin finds himself inappropriately attracted to someone else. The Children “is not … Continue reading →