“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, September 28, 1920, Chicago, Illinois

Joe Jackson, 33, now former outfielder for the Chicago White Sox, is back in his hotel room after testifying to a Cook County grand jury about whether he was involved in fixing last year’s World Series, played against the Cincinnati Reds. Which the White Sox lost, to everyone’s surprise. Except the bookies.

Joe Jackson baseball card

Jackson had been eager to tell the jury that he had taken the $5,000 offered to him by another teammate to throw three games, but he hadn’t earned it. Joe testified that throughout all the Series games he had

batted to win, fielded to win, and run the bases to win.”

He had played better than almost any ball player ever.

In addition, he’d been promised $20,000!

After his testimony, a remorseful Jackson repeatedly told the crush of reporters waiting outside the courthouse,

All I got was the $5,000…handed me in a dirty envelope. I never got the other $15,000. I told that to [the judge]. He said he didn’t care what I got…I don’t think the judge likes me. I never got the $15,000 that was coming to me.”

The next day, Joe is astounded to read in the Chicago Daily News this account of what happened when he came out of the Cook County Courthouse:

When Jackson left the criminal court building…he found several hundred youngsters, aged from 6 to 16, waiting for a glimpse of their idol. One child stepped up to the outfielder, and, grabbing his coat sleeve, said:  ‘It ain’t true, is it, Joe?’ ‘Yes, kid, I’m afraid it is,’ Jackson replied. The boys opened a path for the ball player and stood in silence until he passed out of sight. ‘Well, I’d never have thought it,’ sighed the lad.” 

What youngsters?! When the hell had that happened?! Joe wonders.

“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@gypsyteacher.com.

My “Such Friends” presentations, Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Round Table, and The Founding of the Abbey Theatre, are available to view on the website of PICT Classic Theatre.

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

This fall I am talking about writers’ salons in Ireland, England, France and America before and after the Great War in the Osher Lifelong Learning programs at University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie-Mellon University.

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, September, 1920, Monk’s House, East Sussex, England

Tom is coming this weekend.

At their East Sussex home, Monk’s House, Virginia, 38, and Leonard Woolf, 39, often welcome weekend guests.

This weekend, one of their star authors at their own Hogarth Press, American ex-patriate Thomas Stearns Eliot, about to turn 32, is coming for the first time.

T. S. Eliot

A few years ago, they were very impressed with Eliot’s poem published by The Egoist Press. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” and wrote asking if they could bring out a collection of his poetry. They published 200 copies of Tom’s Poems last year, selling for 2 shillings, 6 pence each. When Leonard closed out the account last month, they had paid Tom 4 pounds, 17 shillings, 4 pence, and made a nice profit for themselves of 9 pounds, 6 shillings, 10 ½ pence. The Woolfs feel that this is an indication, after five years in business, that the Hogarth Press is making good progress toward becoming a “real” publisher.

Ovid Press, also based in London, has published a private edition of Eliot’s Ara Vus Prec—vellum paper, Moroccan leather binding, gold lettering—which has almost all the same poems in it.

From the beginning, Virginia and Leonard have been clear that they are most interested in what the author has to say. The Hogarth Press books definitely look good, and sometimes experiment with typography, but they are meant to be read more than just looked at.

Ara Vus Prec published by the Ovid Press

The risk the Woolfs took on publishing the unknown Eliot has paid off for him as well—the major American publisher Alfred A. Knopf brought out a US version of his Poems earlier this year.

Tom still has a day job at a bank, but some of his friends and fans are talking about putting together a fund to support him and his work.

Virginia is mostly looking forward to talking to Tom about his writing over tea. She feels that sometimes his words need just a bit more explanation.

“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@gypsyteacher.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.

This fall I am talking about writers’ salons in Ireland, England, France and America before and after the Great War in the Osher Lifelong Learning programs at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie-Mellon University.

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

My “Such Friends” presentations, Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Round Table, and The Founding of the Abbey Theatre, are available to view for free on the website of PICT Classic Theatre.

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, mid-September, 1920, New York City, New York

Alexander McKaig, 25, is enjoying a quiet evening in his New York City apartment, when in through the door bursts his friend and former Princeton classmate, F. Scott Fitzgerald, about to turn 24, and his new bride, Zelda, 20. Fighting. As always.

Apparently, they had just jumped on a train to Manhattan when their most recent squabble brought them to the Westport, Connecticut, train station, near their current rented home. Zelda had almost been run over by a train while crossing the Saugatuck River railroad bridge.

Since the Fitzgeralds moved to Westport early in the summer, McKaig’s impression is that they party and fight all the time. The most recent big blow out had been over Labor Day weekend.

Zelda Fitzgerald, back row; Scott Fitzgerald, front row; Alex McKaig, far right; with other partygoers in Westport, Connecticut

Why all the drama? Scott’s writing career appears to be going well. Based on the success of his first novel, This Side of Paradise, earlier this year, his publisher, Scribner’s and Sons, brought out a collection of his short stories, Flappers and Philosophers, just last week.

Flapper and Philosophers cover

The Fitzgeralds are always complaining about having no money. But Alex knows that an advance on the Scribner’s royalties bought Zelda a new fur coat. And Fitzgerald has sold some of his stories to Hollywood movie studios for thousands of dollars.

What on earth are they always fighting about?!

After listening to Zelda yet again threaten to leave Scott for good, McKaig determines that he won’t attend their next upcoming drunken party in Westport.

“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@gypsyteacher.com.

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

My “Such Friends” presentations, Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Round Table, and The Founding of the Abbey Theatre, are available to view on the website of PICT Classic Theatre.

This fall I am talking about writers’ salons in Ireland, England, France and America before and after the Great War in the Osher Lifelong Learning programs at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie-Mellon University.

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-September, 1920, Boston, Massachusetts

Irish-American lawyer, John Quinn, 50, and his family—sister Julia Quinn Anderson, in her mid-thirties; niece Mary, 13; two household servants and a private nurse—are at the Boston South Station waiting for their train back to Quinn’s home in New York City.

Boston South Station

They have all just finished a lovely long holiday in a cottage in Ogunquit on the coast of Maine, courtesy of Quinn. John wasn’t able to join them until just a few weeks ago. But he really appreciated relaxing at the resort. He hired a car and driver from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to bring them here to Boston—well worth the cost, including $12 tip.

Quinn notices that Boston is, as he later writes to a friend,

turned over to the Irish, who turned out…one hundred thousand strong to greet [Irish politician Eamon de Valera, 37]. I am told that 70 percent of the population of Boston is Irish…There is one spot on the earth where the Irish are on top.”

De Valera, self-proclaimed President of Dáil Éireann, the Parliament of the newly proclaimed Irish Republic, addresses a crowd of 50,000 at Fenway Park near the end of his American tour, selling bonds to support his new government.

De Valera audience at Fenway Park

Nearby, two Italian immigrants, Nicola Sacco, 29, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, 32, are indicted for a robbery and double murder at a shoe factory in Braintree, Massachusetts, last April.

For silent newsreel footage of de Valera’s trip to Boston, click 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@gypsyteacher.com.

This fall I am talking about writers’ salons in Ireland, England, France and America before and after the Great War in the Osher Lifelong Learning programs at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie-Mellon University.

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

My “Such Friends” presentations, Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Round Table, and The Founding of the Abbey Theatre, are available to view on the website of PICT Classic Theatre.

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, September, 1920, Paris, France

Almost 30,000 Americans are living permanently in Paris. And not everyone is thrilled with them. Even some of their fellow Americans. One had his letter to the editor published in the paper:

“Sir: 

Couldn’t you…help get a law passed requiring that muzzles be placed on all our American intellectual aristocrats before they are turned loose in the iniquitous regions of Montparnasse and the Cafe du Dome where they sit on the terrace from noon til midnight, soaking up various forms of alcoholic beverage and categorically condemning America and all things American with the ignorant assurance of youth?…Among other things I heard them refer to our President as a ‘cheap politician and an intellectual nonentity’ and the Statue of Liberty as a ‘monument to our Illustrious Death.’”

Soaking up alcoholic beverage at the Café du Dome

“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@gypsyteacher.com.

This fall I am talking about writers’ salons in Ireland, England, France and America before and after the Great War in the Osher Lifelong Learning programs at University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie-Mellon University.

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

My “Such Friends” presentations, Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Round Table, and The Founding of the Abbey Theatre, are available to view on the website of PICT Classic Theatre.

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, September, 1920, 57 West 57th Street, mid-town Manhattan

To be honest, it’s not great.

The apartment that free-lance writer Dorothy Parker, 27, is planning to rent at the corner of Sixth Avenue and 57^th Street on the Upper West Side, is not great.

But Parker feels that she and her husband, Eddie, also 27, a veteran of the Great War, really need a change.

Currently they are living farther uptown on 71^st and West End Avenue. Eddie seems to have his morphine addiction under control, but still drinks. He has started back to work at Paine Webber, and she is selling lots of stories, articles and poems to magazines like Life, The Saturday Evening Post, Ladies Home Journal.

But the Parkers definitely need a change, and this could be it.

Dorothy has been looking around midtown and hasn’t come up with any better alternatives. One place an agent had shown her was much too big. She told him,

All I need is room enough to lay a hat and a few friends.”

This dusty three-story building, right near the rattling, noisy Sixth Avenue El, has a tiny place available on the top floor.

The Sixth Avenue El

The studios are designed for artists to use, not necessarily live in. One of the illustrators here is Neysa McMein, 32, whose apartment is used as a drinking hangout by many of their mutual friends, writers who lunch regularly at the Algonquin Hotel, right off Sixth Avenue on West 44^th Street, a short walk away.

Neysa McMein

Another advantage is the Swiss Alps restaurant, on the ground floor of the building. They deliver.

So Parker is determined to sign a lease and move in with her seed-spilling canary, Onan, her not yet housebroken Scottish terrier, Woodrow Wilson, and her still traumatized husband.

If that doesn’t save this marriage, nothing will.

“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@gypsyteacher.com.

Read about Dorothy Parker’s ashes being re-interred in New York City here.

My “Such Friends” presentations, Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Round Table, and The Founding of the Abbey Theatre, are available to view on the website of PICT Classic Theatre.

This fall I am talking about writers’ salons in Ireland, England, France and America before and after the Great War in the Osher Lifelong Learning programs at University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie-Mellon University.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ 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.