My grandfather, Francis Jackson, died over 80 years ago, when my mother was eight years old. He is buried, if not in a pauper's grave, as is the rightful place for the poet he was, then with a poor man's marker. That is, from what we know, the way he would have wented things to be.
Not only was he buried with a poor man's grave marker, but he was buried, at his request, without his shoes. He wanted his shoes to be given to someone who could not afford them. In the early 1920s, a good pair of men's shoes cost $4.85.
That is the end of the story we were told. What was his worlkd like as he lay dying.
According to http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/audio/history/pdf/america_in_ the_1920s_triumph_or_disaster.pdf
For me, the theme of the decade is economic prosperity: technological innovation, especially in the motor industry – by 1925 Ford were producing a car every 10 seconds; a burgeoning synthetics industry … the invention of nylon;. a revolution in communications, and in electrical goods; a doubling of the number of telephones and radios, and a tripling of the number of cars. Causes? To a degree, government policy – isolation and protective tariffs – the Fordney-McCumber Act of 1922. But more particularly, the rise of a consumer economy, especially the development of advertising and hire purchase, and the growth of the first share-holding economy in the world. For me, the overriding image of 1920s America is a glossy automobile, rich young men and fashionable young women relaxing by a swimming pool, and the legend ‘The Better Buick’.
VS.
I think – by contrast – I would stress the FRAGILITY of the American economy. Tariffs were ultimately going to harm trade, not help it. Agriculture was in crisis --half a million farmers a year were going bankrupt – and the coal and textiles industries were in decline. Prosperity was an illusory crust on the top of the American pie: the richest 5% of the people earned a third of the income, and in the meantime 42% per cent of the population were living below the poverty line. The 1920s was not about prosperity, it was about over-heating–over-production, over confidence, and of course the completely mad speculation in shares, and bogus companies, and bad banking that led to the 1929 depression. It all ended in tears.
VS.
Flappers! The Roaring Twenties! I’m sure that economy is important, but it’s all dreadfully boring, isn’t it, and if you’re looking for where 1920s America made its mark, surely it’s got to be its social impact? I mean, this was THE age of revolution … of liberation. Jazz … Benny Goodman and Fats Waller. Films – the coming of the talkies … Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin. And dances! – the Charleston and the Black Bottom. And most of all, a REVOLUTION in the role of women. The advent of the ‘working girl’, and – after 1920 – the VOTING girl. Coco Channel and the ‘garconne’ look, short skirts, those AWFUL hats, smoking in public, playing tennis – these developments have formed our world as it is today, and they were born in American society in the 1920s. So my icon for the 1920s would be film goddess Clara Bow in the film ‘It’, as the self-confident shopgirl Betty Lou Spence, who has ‘it’ and is ‘it’, as she chases rich businessman Cyrus Waltham.
The reality, for most Americans....
To be a widow with a young child in the 1920s was not a position one would desire, had one a choice. There were almost no funds available for widows with dependent children. Many children were put into orphanages, despite the fact that they had a living parent but that parent could not afford the keep the child. One paper said that people would rather give 100 dollars to support an orphanage than 10 dollars to a poor widow with children. What a curious species we are, touched by the children, not so much the mother. Few jobs were open to women.
6 comments:
I read and am responding to your blog. You could have been kinder about your ultimatum....Like saying, " I would love you to read my blog and comment." I would have been glad too. I haven't blogged yet as I can't figure out what to say. Grandpa Jackson, was a good man and I need to hear the story again.
I am not responding to grandpa's shoes. I am still stuck on the same old arts/traditions track. I am still not ready to go into all that...and am still not a bit happy about it. But here is another line about which I am unhappy. I quote you: "I don't believe in saying this or that art is GOOD. I think that is elitist." WHAT? Are you SERIOUS? I must decide every single time I dip my brush whether this is a good or bad decision. I certainly can and should decide that Thomas Kincade and Keene and their ilk are BAD artists and those who nearly knock me to the FLOOR at first sight are GOOD artists. We are all born, theoretically, with equal RIGHTS, but not otherwise equal. We are richer or smarter or more talented musically, and then it follows on to getting a better education or more experience. How can it be "elitist" to use what we have been given BY OUR ANCESTORS or worked hard to acquire for ourselves AND FOR OUR CHILDREN? Do you believe that good taste cannot ever be taught? I agree that it cannot be taught to SOME. My husband canNOT see a painting unless it has puppies or maybe a cow in it...it is absolutely invisible or meaningless even if he TRIES. But maybe if he had been raised differently, his brain would have developed differently (and would be nearly technologically incompetent, like me, instead of as brilliant as he is?). I think "elitist" is one of those PC words that we can do without when it comes to the arts, especially nowdays when it is most generally recognized that you cannot separate the arts into categories like craft,couture,folk, fine....and still have a meaningful understanding. They are increasingly seen as one, thank heavens, and it is/was the division which was, indeed, elitist, but still there is GOOD AND BAD. Cormac McCarthy and Don Delilo are GOOD (incredible) writers and Harold Robbins NOT. There is something wrong with that statement? Christy
wow...
all of this.
I wrote a response last night, but it seems to have disappeared. What I said was basically that you are speaking from the point of view of an artist, engrossed in the process of producing art, and I am speaking as a scientist, trying to pry open your metaphors.
Christy, it is not clear to me that when you make what you feel is a good or bad decision in producing an object that that decision automatically determines that the object produced will be evaluated by all art critics, or even some or any art critics, as an example of good art.
The problem with issues of good art is outlined in my book and I will post it on my next blog.
I am glad that I am not the only one who loses what they write. I believe it is a serious problem ...that we don't use paper anymore AND that I am somehow impaired (or it is more likely la puta viejez). DEFINITELY my art would not regularly, maybe only VERY seldom or even never, would it be judged good. I myself do not so judge it. I only say I must make DECISIONS as to good or bad. I use my own learning and talent to do that, but it guarantees NOTHING. I only claim that I or any GOOD critic who makes similar decisions about the art of others (any art) are making judgements based on experience and learning which shouldn't be called ELITIST. The critic is a TEACHER. She must be able to explain WHY it is good or bad. Critics have, historically, probably been waaaay wrong more often than right. They have been blinkered, I guess, or just unlearned or untalented, whatever...no matter. BUT WHEN THEY ARE GOOD, they are great teachers, help you to see or understand in a new way, and that is not elitist. Where do I speak in metaphors? I am missing something here, as usual.
Good is a metaphor, standing for something -- some sort of quality. While critics may be (and probably do think they are) teachers, the knowledge base they work from is largely arbitrary. They may have been unlearned, untalented, not very thoughtful, but they definitely put themselves forth as having knowledge that the rest of us plebians do not have. I call that elitist.
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