“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, May 29, 1920, Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, Atlanta, Georgia

One year in to his ten-year sentence for sedition, Eugene V. Debs, 64, pulls off a coup. He accepts the nomination of the Socialist Party for president of the United States. For the fifth time.

Dr. Madge P. Stephens of the Socialist Party nominating committee with Eugene V. Debs

When Debs ran eight years ago, he got 6% of the vote, the most for any Socialist Party candidate ever. In Florida, he even came in ahead of the incumbent Republican president.

This November will be the first time when women are able to vote in federal elections—assuming the 19^th Amendment is finally ratified by the last few states, as expected. There will be more voters than ever.

Debs had been imprisoned last year after being found guilty of making a speech urging men to resist the draft during the Great War.

He proudly wears his prison uniform when formally accepting the nomination. Knowing he will not be able to make any campaign addresses or even statements. And that his full sentence will not be over until after the next two presidential administrations.

But part of his platform is that, if elected, he will pardon himself.

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the book, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s, to be published by K. Donnelly Communications. For more information, email me at kaydee@gpysyteacher.com.

In 2020 I will be talking about writers’ salons before and after the Great War in Ireland, England, France and America in the University of Pittsburgh’s Osher Lifelong Learning program.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins and his relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is available on Amazon in both print and Kindle versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”: Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

 

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, May 27, 1920, 8 rue Dupuytren, Left Bank, Paris

Some days it feels as though everyone in France is on strike, thinks American ex-patriate bookstore owner Sylvia Beach, 33. Except her.

Railway workers have been on strike all month. And they’ve managed to get thousands of industrial workers to walk out in sympathy.

On the other hand, her English-language bookshop, Shakespeare & Co., is doing so well, she has had to hire part-time workers.

But someone stole her sign—twice! So a French friend created his own version of William Shakespeare. Not very English-looking.

Shakespeare & Co. sign

Beach is the victim of her own success. She has had to turn down numerous invitations to dinner from fellow American, writer Gertrude Stein, 46, at her salon a few blocks away, across the Luxembourg Gardens, at 27 rue de Fleurus.

Today she is just plain frustrated. She writes to Gertrude,

It’s a miserable business and I am going to sell out…or something if this keeps up.”

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the book, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s, to be published by K. Donnelly Communications. For more information, email me at kaydee@gpysyteacher.com.

In 2020 I will be talking about writers’ salons before and after the Great War in Ireland, England, France and America in the University of Pittsburgh’s Osher Lifelong Learning program.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins and his relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is available on Amazon in both print and Kindle versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”: Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

 

 

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, May 22, 1920, on board the S. S. Megantic, Montreal, Canada

Irish poet William Butler Yeats, 54, and his wife, Georgie, 28, are just about to embark on their voyage back to Liverpool on the S. S. Megantic, part of the White Star Line.

What a great trip it has been.

Postcard of the S. S. Megantic

This was Yeats’ third American lecture tour, but the first with his wife. They had seen a lot of the big country. But most importantly, in New York City, they had had time to spend with his father, painter John Butler Yeats, 81.

Before boarding the ship, Yeats had sent back to their friend in New York, lawyer and art collector, John Quinn, 50, the key to his Central Park West apartment. He thanked Quinn for being such a gracious host, and for

never intrud[ing] irrelevancies…[providing] less argument and more sympathy and understanding [than any other Americans].”

Being away from home had made Yeats feel more strongly than ever about the future of his newly independent country. He and Georgie will spend some time visiting friends in and around London, but then they are eager to go home to Dublin.

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the book, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s, to be published by K. Donnelly Communications. For more information, email me at kaydee@gpysyteacher.com.

In 2020 I will be talking about writers’ salons before and after the Great War in Ireland, England, France and America in the University of Pittsburgh’s Osher Lifelong Learning program.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins and his relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is available on Amazon in both print and Kindle versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”: Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

 

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, Mid-May, 1920, Ile St. Louis, Paris

Painter Duncan Grant, 35, is having a glass of wine in the most fabulous apartment, lent to him by posh friends for the past two months, at the tip of Ile St. Louis, looking out at Notre Dame.

What a great trip.

Two months ago he was home in London, with his partner, fellow painter Vanessa Bell, 41, listening to a reading of a memoir by her sister, novelist Virginia Woolf, 38.

The next night, he was in Paris dining with his former lover, economist John Maynard Keynes, 37, at legendary restaurant La Perouse, with its scandalous secret rooms.

La Perouse, 51 Quai des Grands Augustins

On the Tuesday he arrived he had written to Vanessa back in London, describing the flat as

full of Bonnards & Vuillards & exquisite views over the Seine with an old world French house servant called Jean. I have only seen it all by the light of the sunset…I do wish you could come before Friday night.”

Vanessa did come over and they had gone with Keynes to Rome for a month. Maynard had wisely determined that the lire would sink against the pound and advised them to spend. Which they did.

Duncan Grant and Maynard Keynes

Rome was filled with tourists. Duncan wrote to his lover, Bunny Garnett, 28, who was staying in Duncan’s rooms back in Bloomsbury, that Rome

is packed with the Italian aristocrats who simply love living in hotels and leaving their estates to Bolsheviks in the country. Our hotel is cram full of contessas, marchesas, principessas, and duchesses. They don’t get up till lunch, at 1, have a siesta till about 4, eat ices and drink coffee till 5 when they take a drive on the Pincio, home to dinner at 9:30. Jazz till 2, even the old ladies received till 4 or 5 in the morning…1 can buy masses of arum lilies irises roses pansies and marigolds for a few francs on the steps of the Piazza di Spagna.”

Maynard, now quite the celebrity economist, had been invited to visit with American art historian Bernard Berenson, 54, at his Villa I Tatti outside Florence. He had insisted that Vanessa and Duncan come along.

Back in Paris, the month of May had started off with riots during the International Labor Day celebrations, and then strikes broke out all over the country—dock workers, coal miners, and, most inconvenient of all, railway workers.

Vanessa had written letters home about their fascinating dinners with

the Derains, Braque & Mme., and Satie—sat til 2 am outside Lipps talking in the end only to the Derains—all the others went. It was very hot & got delicious at that hour. Derain was perfectly charming & so was she. In fact the more I see of her the more I like her & the more I am overcome by her beauty. I think she’s one of the most astonishing people I’ve ever met & less terrifying than she was at first.”

Mme. Derain in a White Shawl by Andre Derain

His traveling companions have all left, so today Duncan goes back to La Perouse for lunch, this time with the founder of Nouvelle Revue Française (The New French Review), Andre Gide, 50, and his lover of the past four years, photographer Marc Allegret, 19.

Now it is time for Duncan to go back home to London. One last glass of wine…

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the book, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s, to be published by K. Donnelly Communications. For more information, email me at kaydee@gpysyteacher.com.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”: Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

In 2020 I will be talking about writers’ salons before and after the Great War in Ireland, England, France and America in the University of Pittsburgh’s Osher Lifelong Learning program.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins and his relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is available on Amazon in both print and Kindle versions.

 

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, May 14, 1920, Home Market Club, Boston, Massachusetts

Ohio Senator and candidate for the Republican presidential nomination Warren G. Harding, 54, has just finished his speech before the Home Market Club, publisher of The Protectionist magazine.

His campaign manager, Harry Daugherty, 60, had urged him to go ahead with this speech. They were both very disappointed by the results of last month’s Ohio primary. He won his own state by only 15,000 votes, gaining only 39 out of the 48 delegates. And then he came in fourth in Indiana with no delegates at all.

A fortune teller had told his wife Florence, 59, that Warren would become president and then die in office, but both Florence and Daugherty had convinced him to stay in the race anyway.

Warren and Florence Harding campaigning

In his speech, Harding told the conservative crowd,

My countrymen, there isn’t anything the matter with world civilization, except that humanity is viewing it through a vision impaired in a cataclysmal war. Poise has been disturbed, and nerves have been racked, and fever has rendered men irrational…America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy…If we can prove [to be] a representative popular government under which a citizenship seeks what it may do for the government and country rather than what the country may do for individuals, we shall do more to make democracy safe for the world than all armed conflict ever recorded…My best judgment of America’s need is to steady down, to get squarely on our feet…Let’s get out of the fevered delirium of war…”

Harding will record this and all his speeches for sale as phonographic discs.

You can listen to Harding’s full “Return to Normalcy” speech—only five minutes long—on the Library of Congress site here.

 

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the book, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s, to be published by K. Donnelly Communications. For more information, email me at kaydee@gpysyteacher.com.

In 2020 I will be talking about writers’ salons before and after the Great War in Ireland, England, France and America in the University of Pittsburgh’s Osher Lifelong Learning program.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins and his relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is available on Amazon in both print and Kindle versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”: Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

 

 

 

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, May, 1920, Algonquin Hotel, 59 West 44th Street, Midtown Manhattan

Poet William Butler Yeats, 54, and his wife Georgie, 28, are settling into New York City. They have spent this whole year so far on Willie’s third American lecture tour. It’s been a big success, but they’re exhausted.

Their dear friend, Irish-American lawyer and supporter of the arts, John Quinn, just turned 50, really wants them to stay with him in his spacious Central Park West penthouse apartment. They will—but they decided that a few days at the Algonquin Hotel will be more restful.

They are only planning to be in New York for a couple of weeks before they head for Montreal to board the Mejantic back to England. Quinn has arranged all their tickets and transportation.

Algonquin Hotel lobby

Someone has offered to record Yeats for

a new kind of moving picture—a picture that talks as well as moves,”

as he describes it.

Quinn says they might have the opportunity to meet an Irish politician also touring America. Eamon de Valera, 37, current self-proclaimed President of Dáil Éireann, the Parliament of the newly proclaimed Irish Republic, has asked to meet his country’s most famous poet. And Yeats is curious—is this former Irish rebel just all propaganda? Or is there a real human in there?

Eamon de Valera

Mostly, they plan to spend more time with Willie’s father, painter John Butler Yeats, 81, whom Quinn has been keeping an eye on, ever since he moved from Dublin to Manhattan 13 years ago. He was supposed to stay just a few weeks!

The Yeats family had implored their father to come home to Ireland. But J B had written to Yeats that, as an American had pointed out,

In Dublin it is hopeless insolvency. Here it is hopeful insolvency.”

And so he stayed.

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the book, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s, to be published by K. Donnelly Communications. For more information, email me at kaydee@gpysyteacher.com.

In 2020 I will be talking about writers’ salons before and after the Great War in Ireland, England, France and America in the University of Pittsburgh’s Osher Lifelong Learning program.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins and his relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is available on Amazon in both print and Kindle versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”: Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

 

 

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, May, 1920, 244 Compo Road South, Westport, Connecticut

Newlywed Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, 19, is bored.

She is sitting on the beach not far from their rented, colonial-style 150-plus-year old house, where her new husband, hot hit novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, 24, is upstairs writing short stories. Always writing.

Of course, he gets about $900 for each one, like “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” in this month’s Saturday Evening Post, so at least that will pay some bills.

Their local bootlegger, Baldy Jack Rose, 43, keeps them in cheap whiskey. And their mysterious next store neighbour, Frederick Lewis, is a thirty-ish multimillionaire who pretty much keeps to himself. He doesn’t mind if Zelda shortcuts across his property to get to this beach, which makes the 20-minute walk a bit more interesting. And he gives great parties.

Frederick E. Lewis

But Zelda is still bored. When Scott’s not working they drive their sports car around the countryside, or back into the city. Although, since she ran over a fire hydrant, Scott won’t let her behind the wheel anymore.

They finally had to hire a Japanese house boy for the cleaning and cooking because Zelda sure as heck couldn’t do any of that.

She thought that finally getting out of Montgomery, Alabama, away from her family, moving up north, getting married—she thought it would all be more exciting than this.

Now she spends most days hungover, sipping lemonade, sitting in a beach chair. Looking across the Sound to Long Island.

Zelda Fitzgerald at Compo Beach, Connecticut

Thanks to Richard Webb at Gatsby in Connecticut for help in authenticating details of this posting.

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the book, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s, to be published by K. Donnelly Communications. For more information, email me at kaydee@gpysyteacher.com.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins and his relationships with Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is available on Amazon in both print and Kindle versions.

In 2020 I am talking about writers’ salons in Ireland, England, France and America before and after the Great War in the University of Pittsburgh’s Osher Lifelong Learning program.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”: Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, May 5, 1920, Brockton, Massachusetts

The police have been waiting for weeks. The getaway car, used last month in the brutal burglary and double murder at a shoe factory in nearby Braintree, had shown up at a garage here. They know that eventually someone will have to come by to pick it up, and the garage owner has agreed to alert the cops.

Today, four men come to get the dark blue Buick. When the garage keeper tries to delay them, two drive off on their motorcycles and the other two jump on to a streetcar headed for Brockton.

Brockton trolley

As soon as the cops stop the trolley, they know they have their men. Two Italian immigrants, Nicola Sacco, 29, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, 31.

They match the descriptions given by witnesses, they’re carrying pistols, they have no good alibis for the day of the murders. And, they deny being anarchists—just before the cops find a flyer in Sacco’s pocket announcing an anarchist lecture by Vanzetti.

Guilty!

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the book, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s, to be published by K. Donnelly Communications. For more information, email me at kaydee@gpysyteacher.com.

In 2020 I will be talking about writers’ salons in Ireland, England, France and America before and after the Great War in the University of Pittsburgh’s Osher Lifelong Learning program.

Manager as Muse, about Maxwell Perkins and his relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is available on Amazon in both print and Kindle versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”: Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

 

 

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, Spring, 1920, offices of Life magazine, New York City, New York

New drama critic Robert Benchley, 30, is rested from his recent family vacation and ready to start his latest job.

For the past year or so, Benchley was managing editor of Vanity Fair magazine. But when his two friends and critics, Dorothy Parker, 26, and Robert Sherwood, just turned 24, were let go earlier this year, he decided that the job wasn’t worth having. Benchley was replaced by nervous Edmund “Bunny” Wilson, 24, whom he considered to be a scab. But he has agreed to train him anyway.

Robert Sherwood

Parker and Benchley had jumped right into free-lancing, and even rented a tiny office together for $30 a month, above the Metropolitan Opera House at Broadway and 39^th Street.

One cubic foot less of space and it would have constituted adultery,”

Parker said.

The free-lance offers have come pouring in, for both of them. Benchley is still doing his “Books and Other Things” column three times a week for the New York World, for the same money as his full-time Vanity Fair job paid.

But Benchley has a wife and two sons—aged 5 and 1—up in Scarsdale. So when Sherwood  recently became associate editor of humor magazine Life, circulation 250,000, and offered Benchley a full-time drama critic position, he jumped at it. $100 a week—great!

Life, May 6, 1920

And his wife understands that he will have to stay in town with Parker and Sherwood most nights to see plays. He is keeping his formal clothes in the office.

Back in their old office, Dottie has put a sign on the door that says “MEN.”

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the book, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s, to be published by K. Donnelly Communications. For more information, email me at kaydee@gpysyteacher.com.

In 2020 I will be talking about writers’ salons before and after the Great War in Ireland, England, France and America in the University of Pittsburgh’s Osher Lifelong Learning program.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins and his relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is available on Amazon in both print and Kindle versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”: Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.