Tag Archives: PublicDomainDayCountdown

In the 1920s, Robert and Helen Lynd conducted a study of white residents of Muncie, Indiana. Their 1929 book reporting on the social dynamics of the town’s “working class” and “business class” became a surprise best-seller, inspired many followup studies, … Continue reading →

Mignon G. Eberhart published more than 50 books over a 60-year career, and was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America in 1971. Her first novel, The Patient in Room 18, introduces nurse Sarah Keate and her … Continue reading →

By 1929, Arthur Conan Doyle had retired Sherlock Holmes, and his stories had more fantastical elements than Holmes would have put up with. The title story of The Maracot Deep and Other Stories involves encounters with supernatural beings in Atlantis. … Continue reading →

Warner Brothers’ full-color 1929 musical film On With the Show featured Ethel Waters singing “Am I Blue?”, a song so pervasive that it was also in 3 other films that year. Singers that have since covered this standard include Billie … Continue reading →

In 1929, just two years after The Jazz Singer introduced synchronized sound to theaters nationwide, The Broadway Melody was released as a full-length movie musical with synchronized sound nearly throughout. One sequence was even in Technicolor. The movie won the … Continue reading →

William Golding called the bipolar Catholic author Graham Greene “the ultimate chronicler of twentieth-century man’s consciousness and anxiety”. Both Greene’s thrillers and his more serious novels are suffused with concerns of politics and religion, flawed institutions, characters who betray others … Continue reading →

Emma Willard had remarkable persistence. She founded the first higher education institution for women in America, and appealed tirelessly for its support in multiple states. She wrote textbooks for it that include groundbreaking work in history and graphic design. Alma … Continue reading →