The author begins the story of each individual separately, and then often weaves their experiences together. Not all of the characters meet and interact, but the total array of them manage to experience a very thorough set of major events of the time period from 1910 to 1930. If anything big happens, one of his characters is usually there to witness or take part in it.
What do I really think? I would guess that the author's socialist background (he was actually pretty red) caused him to cherry-pick which historical events he put into his novel, just a bit. But that aside, it is more American history crammed into a month of reading than I've had in a lifetime of education. I know more about why this country is the way it is now than I've ever known. It's also great getting a firsthand account of what a person thought about a long-dead president or historical figure. The stuff you read in textbooks and on Wikipedia are so sanitized. You know how people respond to Bush now. Well, people responded to all past presidents the same way. It really makes history come alive to have someone describe it who was there. It becomes much more personal.
The 42nd Parallel
Mac
Fainy, Fenian O'Hara McReary
Born in a small town in PA, father took ill and could no longer work as a night-watchman, mother took in a lot of work and chores to make ends meet (not really meet). When mother took ill and died he and his little sister were taken to Chicago and raised by his Uncle Tim O'Hara and a resentful aunt. Uncle Tim was a bit of a socialist that ran a printing press. He made just enough money until he was put out of business by interests that didn't like his socialist flyers supporting labor.
Mac hit the road, working odd jobs around the midwest 'til they ran out, then going on the bum, riding the rails, avoiding railroad bulls. Reads Looking Backward, heads to Canada, works for the Canadian Pacific Railroad all summer, makes enough to head to Victoria, Seattle, then on to San Francisco. There he married Masie, a pretty dingbat who did not understand or care for his socialist ways. He went to Colorado to operate a printing press for the Western Federation of Miners with Bill Haywood. Searching on that led me to this gem on the Couer d'Alene Mine Wars. After having two children, he split with his wife and went to Mexico to support the revolution there. The workers did not really take control, and, after running a book store down there for a while, he left for the states when it became unsafe for Americans to remain there.
Janey
Jane Williams, Born Georgetown. Middle child. Older brother beaten by father. Spinster, extremely neat and clean. Best day of her life comes at 14 when she, brother Joe and his friend canoe up the Potomac River to Great Falls to have a picnic (with Neccos). Grows up a spinster and eventually goes to work for J. Ward Morehouse (see below) as a stenographer, secretary, devoting her life to him in a wierd spinsterly way. Very patriotic. Somewhat ashamed of her merchant marine brother, Joe (see below).
J. Ward Morehouse
John Ward Morehouse was born in Wilmington DE on the 4th of July. He had 2 brothers and 3 sisters. He finished high school head of the debate team, class orator and winner of the "Mr. Roosevelt, Man of the Hour" essay contest. His family had little money, so he got little schooling. He instead worked in a shady real estate office trying to create a land boom on the New Jersy shore. That didn't work out either, though he met and married an older moneyed woman who was sleeping with everybody. He agreed to marry before he knew. Though a slut, she had money, taste, and education. They honeymooned in Europe, where he learned French and made a connection with a steel magnate who later gave him a start in the public relations business. He split with his wife within the year, and married another moneyed woman in Pittsburg (he had gorgeous blue eyes and wavy blonde hair, and a bearing that just attracted the ladies). He quickly outgrew that job and when WWI started, headed over to work for PR for the Red Cross, where he met Eleanor (below), and Eveline (also below). Back in the states, he basically founded Madison Avenue. Never seemed to do anything of substance, but always managed to impress people.
Eleanor Stoddard
Born to a family of meager means in the Chicago burbs, Eleanor quickly came to loath her family and, even after she moved to the city and continued to draw an allowance from them. She came to love art, which is what brought her together with Eveline. They met at an art museum, became fast friends, both liking the same things, and within the year went into business as decorators. They had fun and learned a little before being offererd a job in New York designing the costumes and scenery for a play. It flopped in less than a week, so they went back to dectorating in NY. Then war came and they both accepted positions in Paris in the Red Cross. They see JW a lot, and meet a number of other of the later characters, Savage, for example. They fight over boffing JW. Eleanor wins (she seems to be the pushier of the two, Eveline being more artistic and less caring about appearances), though Eveline does have JW's baby. Back in NY after the war, we hear little of Eleanor until she marries a Russian nobleman (after the revolution), mostly for his title.
Charlie Anderson
Born in North Dakota. No father and his mother tried to fill he and his brother with religion. It didn't take. He loved women and they usually betrayed him. He left home during high school, worked a bit as a mechanic for his brother, bummed his way to New Orleans. Out of money, he ended up signing on to drive an Ambulance in WWI. He did so, and then transferred to the Lafayette Escadrille as a pilot. Became a famous Ace, and on his return started a company building an aircraft starter. Hit the booze and women hard and eventually inched out of the design and mechanic side and into the Wall Street side of it. Made and was driven out of 2 or 3 more aircraft companies. Did well investing when he wasn't on a binge, but his weeklong binges often occurred at inopportune moments, so he was never as rich as he could have been, though he did well. Drank so much he couldn't eat. Eventually hooked up with Margo Dowling in Florida (below) and got his car hit by a train one night when driving drunk with another woman. He died a week later, physically aged well beyond his years.
Nineteen Nineteen
Joe Williams
Older brother of Janey Williams (above). Joe's father beat him. He took it, and when old enough, ran away to join the Navy. He had to desert after striking an officer, but he was educated for nothing but the sea, so he embarked on a life in the merchant marine, shipping on some good and some bad ships, never spending more than a couple months ashore. He did meet up with a nice girl in Norfolk, married her, and headed of to sea the next day, having not consumated the marriage. Had two or three ships shot out from under him during the war. Landed in a British prison once as a result of having no papers after the shipwreck. Eventually he tried to work up through the ranks to mate and master, but the life at sea wrecked his marriage, and consequently his ambition. Over time he shipped on many vessels, some famous, and contracted a number of diseases, some STDs, some not. It was a rough life, but he was happiest when out on blue water.
Richard Ellsworth Savage
I still haven't figured out what happened to Savage's father -- some unutterable social disease (oh, jailbird). He showed up once asking for money, then died shortly after. Raised by his mother, Dick had an affair with the preacher's wife as a teen. A local rich man liked Dick and sponsored him to Harvard. Made the Harvard Monthly and Advocate, had poems printed in the Literary Digest. Sailed to France on the SS Chicago to drive an Ambulance (before the US entered the war). This is a somewhat hectic existance, allowing many unusual experiences in France and Italy. His letters home revealed a bit of socialism, which the sensors caught. He was reprimanded and sent home on the SS La Touraine. On the way into NY, he notices the site of the Black Tom Explosion. Anyhow, on arrival, his benefactor gathers him up, cover's up his dishonor, get's him a commision and sends him back to Europe, where he is much better behaved (he sells out). He becomes a toady to successful men and rides their coattails to success. Eventually becoming #2 at JW's Madison Avenue firm. JW pops off with heart trouble, and Savage inherits the whole thing. Oh, forgot to mention his beautiful affair with Daughter (see below) on the Italian Campagna among the black cypress and redpurple cyclamen. It was raining and they ran into an abandoned barn and had a roll in the hay.
Eveline Hutchins
Born in Chicago to a well-to-do minister, she grew up with an artistic bent. That is how she met her good friend Eleanor Stoddard (see above). Her family (4 siblings) travelled Europe to experience the culture when she was in her late teens. Eventually she went to New Mexico to live with her folks when they moved there for their health. There she met and had an affair with an artistic poor Mexican who painted her nude a bunch. That ended badly and she went to NY to put on the play with Eleanor. Europe for WWI with the Red Cross, and an affair with JW (above), who seemed spoken for by Eleanor, even though he was married and had 3 children. The affair threw some ice on her friendship with Eleanor, and produced a baby. She married Paul Johnson, a nice sap who knew the child wasn't his. They moved to NY where Eleanor threw large parties with the most interesting guests. Lots of the characters cross paths here. She has an affair with Charlie Anderson and many others, and always called things "horrid", and "boring". Eventually she took her own life by OD-ing on pills.
Daughter
Ann Elizabeth Trent. Daughter of a reasonably well-to-do Texas farmer. Two brothers and no mother. Daughter grew up a bit of a head-strong Tom Boy. Not sure of the whole purpose of Daughter in the book -- what moral her life reveals. She went to a finishing school in NY, and got involved with a labor agitator. Witnessed the Paterson Silk Strike, and was aphalled by the police treatment of women strikers. The description of a strike and how the police were in cahoots with capital and a typical prevention of a legally planned and organized labor meeting by police was very enlightening. Gives a good account of what it was like to really be there. The Paterson strike shows little on the web, but it must have been an important part of Dos Passos' life. His characters and his writing keep coming back to it. Her brother dies in an aircraft training accident and she goes to the post with a hidden revolver to find out who failed at maintaining the craft. She was disuaded, but couldn't stay around and so volunteered to go to Italy on a relief mission. There she meets and falls in love with Dick Savage. He seems to fall for her too, and who wouldn't. But once he gets what he wants, and she becomes pregnant, he brushes her off. She eventually realizes and commits suicide, of a sort, by going flying with a drunk Frenchman. The plane just comes apart in the air. They all do that, I guess. The end.
Ben Compton
Ben Compton is a scrawny, dorky Jew born in NY to a normal working family. He was smart so they took out loans to send him to college (NYU). At his first job he met up with some italian laborers that taught him to think collectively. He read Karl Marx's Capital and Progress and Poverty. He did a little speaking at strikes and found that people listened to him. He got arrested a couple times and spent 6 months in jail. He broke up with his girl and worked his way west, harvesting wheat in Saskatchewan (back-breaking 14 hour days), and then worked in a fruit cannery on the Columbia. He read in Solidarity about a free-speach fight in Everett, WA put on by the Shingle Weaver's Union. Mill owners up there had been beating strikers. Ben joined 300 Wobblies bound for Everett on 2 boats. The result of the trip was the Everett Masacre. After being beaten and arrested, Ben headed back to the east coast to raise money for the defense of those on trial. He was eventually arrested for speaking against the war, and sent to prison for 10 years.
The Big Money
Mary French
Born to a Doctor, her younger brother died of some malady or other that the doctor was unable to prevent. For this the mother never forgave him and Mary's young life was troubled by constant squabling. The father wore himself out caring for the poor coal miners in a small Pennsylvania town for little money. He died overworking himself trying to save patients during the Influenza Epidemic of 1918. Her mother, quite the opposite chose to associate only with the best company, a social climber. Eventually they moved to Colorado where Mary read Ramona, who's author was to become an inspiration to Mary. She also dreamed of being like Ms. Addams who openned Hull House in Chicago. She also read The Harbor and The Jungle. She eventually moved out to Pennsylvania and worked in a miner's union strike relief office. There she observed first-hand the horrible conditions of the families that worked in the mines, and the brutal put-down of miners' strikes. She also had a front-row seat for the failed defense of Sacco and Vanzetti. She was initially emphatuated by G.H.Barrow, and aborted his child when he refused to support her. She came to realize the Labor Faker he really was, and called him on it to his face. At some point in here she also has an affair with Ben Compton after he is released from prison.
Margo Dowling
Born on the Jersey shore, her father was a handsome lifeguard and her mother died at birth. So her mother's best friend married her father and raised her like her own. Father turned into a drunk and dissapeared, so Margo and mom were on their own. She married a Vaudvillian who once mollested Margo. She became emphatuated with a Cuban who she convinced to marry her and take her to Cuba to live. She did NOT like it there, unaware of the language and customs. She gave still-birth to her child and ditched the country for America again. While on a cruise in Florida with her rich beau (his daddy's money), she was dumped to fend for herself. Not too shocked about all this, she runs into Charlie Anderson (see above) and they have a relationship in Florida until his death. She and her mom drive the buick out to California where she makes it as a big-time actress, marrying the director. This whole third book is a bit contrived and not nearly as enthralling as the first two. You get the sense that Dos Passos was running out of things to write about.
G.H. Barrow, the Labor Faker
This was the only major character that did not get his own chapters. We know nothing of his early life or of anything from his point of view. He waltzes in and out of the narratives of most of the other characters' chapters, and seems to be a wholly loathesome creature. He represents labor, sort of, but seems to be the kind of labor representative that capital would choose. He is skinny, oily, with bug eyes and a huge adams apple. He's always chasing skirts, speaking to them about the "Art of Life", meaning let's make love and forget about it tomorrow (there's a lot of that from the men in these books). He works with J.Ward Morehouse as a labor rep, employs Janey for a day (she finds a note from "Queeney", asking for money for an ill-begotten child), runs into Mac in Mexico when he goes there with JW for a talk with the new government, meets Eveline in France (she's no sap, brushes him off), got Mary French pregnant (before she wised up).
The 42nd Parallel
Lover of Mankind (Eugene V. Debs, Head of the American Socialist Party. Ran for president 3 times, the third time from jail.)
The Plant Wizard (Luther Burbank, a botanist) Funny, but the Wikipedia entry doesn't even mention the troubles that Dos Passos suggested Luther had with the church over his belief in Darwin. Dos Passos says he stirred up a wasps nest (religion), wouldn't give up Darwin, so they stung him, and he died, puzzled.
Big Bill (Bill Haywood, the one-eyed founder and leader of the Internatioanl Workers of the World, a labor group known as the Wobblies)
The Boy Orator of the Platte (William Jennings Bryan, a preacher, great orator, and lawyer who ran for president thrice on the Democratic ticket, losing all three, and the prosecuting lawyer of the Scopes Monkey Trial.) Dos Passos seems to be commenting on the futility of most of the causes taken up by Bryan.
Emporer of the Caribbean (Minor C. Keith, Railroad baron and Caribbean fruit shippe.) I can't begin to explain the oily negative tone with which Dos Passos sketches some of these biographies. Of course Dos Passos is a Socialist, and speakes in reverent tones about Debs and with disdain for the treatment of Haywood by Americans. But for capitalist barons of industry he reserves his worst scorn. Men like Keith are portrayed as building empires on the backs of men whose whiskey-scalded, malaria-ridden carcasses are left to rot in the jungles. He cuts down imense Caribbean jungles to plant bananas to give his railroad and ship lines something to haul. The United Fruit Company, which he formed is protrayed as a ruthless price-setter for fruit, allowing fruit to rot on the dock unless the price was low enough to satisfy the company. See how this compares with the somewhat antiseptic picture painted on Wikipedia.
Prince of Peace (Andrew Carnegie, Founder of U.S.Steel, bestower of thousands of Carnegie Libraries all across America -- Moscow's Public Library is one.) Dos Passos' short depiction of Carnegie seems to glow, telling of frugality, hard work, masterful investment and re-investement, and a huge final largesse of charity to peace and learning. But it ends with the line "exept in time of war", showing the author's belief that most U.S. industry made much more money in time of war than in peace, thus favoring and even promoting war, usually at the expense of the lower classes.
The Electrical Wizard (Edison, no desription necessary, and only one name necessary.) Dos Passos seems to pretty much leave Edison alone, but does scold his lack of social conscience. As if to say "yes, he was a great tinkerer, but ignored all the social problems of the time".
Proteus (Steinmetz). Grew up deformed, and, SURPRISE, a socialist. G.E. bought out the company he worked for, humored him, let him be a socialist, let him have a greenhouse, let him keep alligators, talking crows, and a gila monster. The PR department talked him up as a wizard. Dos Passos obviously thought he sold to capital, and an easy life.
Fighting Bob (Robert LaFollette). Bob was a young Wisconsin grad that bucked the Republican system and got elected as a Republican District Attorney, Congressman, and Governor. It was a 10-year war in which he wrecked the Republican machine of the state and returned governance to the people. Then he went on to the US Senate. He voted against entry into WWI. The press branded him a traitor, he was burned in effigy. Eventually he wore out and died.
Nineteen Nineteen
Playboy (Jack Reed). Born in Portland to a US Marshall, attended Harvard, Joined all the right clubs, but not all the best clubs because his blood didn't run thin enough. Was not a socialist. Read The Man Who Would Be King. As a journalist, covered the Paterson Strike, picketed, was jailed and wrote sympathetically of the strikers. He really learned to write while covering Pancho Villa and the Mexican Revolution. Then WWI blew out all Diogenes Lanterns. Jack Reed was the best writer of his time, his war correspondence articles were all anybody had to read to understand any side of the war. He was with the French, the Germans, at Saloniki, behind the lines in the tottering empire of the czar. He was with the soldiers and peasants in Petrograd in October, and wrote Ten Days that Shook the World. After the war, things were bad in America for Socialists and Wobblies, what with the Masses Trial, the Wobbly trial, and Wilson packing the jails with such folk. So Reed stayed on in Smolny, helping to build the dictatorship of the proletariat. He contracted typhus there, and is buried inside the Kremlin Wall.
Randolphe Bourne (Randolphe Bourne). A small hunchback that worked his way through Columbia. Writer of the unfinished essay War is the Health of the State. Spoke out against the war. Was shadowed by agents throughout the war. Did not live to see Wilson's 14 points, the Peace of Versailles, or the purplish normalcy of the Ohio Gang
The Happy Warrior (Theodore Roosevelt). Teddy was a sickly child with glasses. He was taught boxing and fencing and was encouraged to walk in the woods. From the time he was 11 he wrote copiously, and naturally studied law. Became a rancher in the Dakotas (hence the rough riders), returned to Manhattan (ancestral home) and became the police chief, taking pride in wearing a cape and making collars himself. Wrote the naval history of the war of 1812. He was appointed Assitant Secretary of the Navy as a result, and when the Maine blew up, resigned to lead the Rough Riders as a Colonel. The American public was told of his heroism in the charge up San Juan Hill, but they were not told that the regulars had already got up the hill on the other side, and that Santiago had already surrendered (Dos Passos' words, not mine). When he got home, Boss Platt got him a job as the Governor. He double crossed the Platt machine and so Platt shelved him by making him VP. But then Czolgocz made him President. He did a lot of things as president and after (Panama, big game hunting, etc.). He tried to run again, and after losing the Republican primary, started his own party (progressive, Bull Moose), but lost to Wilson. Things weren't bully anymore. Wilson wouldn't let him lead a division (no place for amateurs). He fell ill on Armistice Day and died shortly thereafter.
A Hoosier Quixote (Paxton Hibben). Son of rich parents, he mingled with the poor in Indiana, so neither liked him. At Princeton, editor of the Tiger, brilliant scholastic record, entered the diplomatic corps. Assigned to Petersburg, he witnessed the put down of riots at Nevsky. He sided with the revolutionists and was transferred to Mexico, then Columbia where he helped TR steal Panama. Campaigned for TR in 1912 and discovered that TR was a windbag like the rest of them. Went to WWI as a war correspondent. Saw the Germans goosestepping through Belgium, saw Poincaire inspect the ranks of bitter, half-mutinous troops at Verdun, the magotty corpses of the Serbian retreat. Back home after the war, someone circulated a picture of him placing a wreath on Jack Reed's grave and he was persecuted as a Red. They tried to lynch him at his 20th Princeton reunion. No more place for social justice in America.
Meester Veelson (Woodrow Wilson). OK, I'm tired of just spewing Dos Passos' stuff here. He detested Wilson because Wilson attacked the radicals left wingers (IWW, Socialists -- though they were not so radical), and got us into the war that allowed the clamping down of civil liberties. To be fair, labor actually faired extremely well under Wilson. The AFL and other less radical labor unions were accepted by capital (as the lesser of evils) and government. But the government came after any organization that even hinted at using espionage or violence to achieve their goals. Also, unfortunately, the war gave excuse to the government and the public to attack the radical left openly, often in violation of the law and certain rights, and without recourse. It was open season on Reds. I believe capital and the government greatly feared the revolutions in Russia and Mexico (though the Mexican revolution did not really change things there), and was surprisingly successful and imprinting their will on the American public. For this turning on the socialists, Dos Passos is very resentful. He had always seen socialism as working for the good of the common man.
The House of Morgan (John Pierpont Morgan). 4th in a line of successful Morgans. The foundation had been laid, but JP eventually acquired an incredible part of the world's assets: 4 national banks, 3 trust companies, 3 life insurance companies, 10 railroad systems, 3 streetrailway companies, an express company, the International Mercantile Marine. Through interlocking directorates had control over 18 other railroads, USSteel, General Electric, AT&T, five major industries. Morgan-Stillman-Baker controlled 13% of the banking resources in the world. (War, panics, and bankruptcies were good growing weather for the house of Morgan). Liked cruising in the Corsair. Saved the US Treasury in the Panic of 1893. Coxey's Army was marching on Washington and Cleveland didn't know what to do. Morgan had a plan to stop the hemoraging of gold and made a not inconsiderable sum implementing it. Owned immense collections of art and antiquities. His collectors bought anything that was expensive or rare or had the glint of empire on it. When he died in 1913, his empire was so well built that it barely caused a ripple in the market. J.P.Morgan Jr. took over and loaned A LOT of money to the allies. By 1917 the allies had borrowed almost $2 billion from the House of Morgan. By the end of the peace process, the term J.P.Morgan suggests had compulsion over $74 billion. (Warloans, starvation, lice, cholera and typhus: good growing weather for the House of Morgan).
Joe Hill (Joe Hillstrom). A Swede that came to America and read Marx and the IWW Preamble and decided to help form the new society in the shell of the old. Had a knack for setting rebel words to tunes. All over the west wobblies, and hoboes were singing Joe's songs. At Bingham Utah he organized the workers of the Utah Contruction Company into One Big Union and won wage increases, reasonable hours and better grub. But the angel Moroni moved the hearts of the Mormons to decide it was Joe Hill shot a local grocer. The Swedish consul and President Wilson tried to intervene to get a new trial, but the Utah Supreme Court sustained the verdict. His last words before the firing squad were "Don't Mourn for Me, Organize."
Paul Bunyan (Wesley Everest). Wesley Everest returned from the war and was not afraid of anything. The IWW put the idea into Wesley's head that the forests ought to belong to all the people (ten monopoly groups then owned 1.2 trillion square feet of standing timber). The Wobblies were reds. To be a red in the summer of 1919 was as bad as being a Hun or a pacifist in 1917. The timber owners set out to clear the reds out of the logging camps. They formed the Legion of Loyal Loggers and made it worth their while for a bunch of ex-soldiers to break up the IWW hall on Memorial Day 1918 (the police stood by). The Wobblies hired a new hall and recruited more members. Not a thing in this world Paul Bunyan's afraid of. Next year the Legion was going to do it again on Armistice Day. The parade went up the street, then came back and the Legion stopped in front of the IWW hall. Paul Bunyan was ready and met the raiders with gun fire. There was a massacre. Bunyan was chased down and caught in the river. Jailed. That night the power to the town was shut off. A mob got Wesley, tortured him, mutilated him, hung him from the bridge 3 times (the first two attempts failed), then riddle his body with bullets. The coroner pronounced it a suicide. All the Wobblies were arrested and put on trial. All sent to jail. No Legionaires were, nor any townfolk or timber barons. 20 years later the last of the Wobblies were pardonned and set free.
The Big Money
The American Plan (Frederick Winslow Taylor). The man that streamlined and timed everything in industry to promote efficiency. Fascinating early history of Mr. Taylor. How does Dos Passos come up with this detail? "A crack tennis player, he and his friend won the national doubles championship using a spoon-shaped racket of his own design." "Couldn't sleep nights." He thought that improving effieciency meant increased production, lower costs, higher wages, bigger profits. He was a crank about shovels. Every job had to have a shovel of the right weight and size for that job alone. But when he began to pay his men in proportion to the increased efficiency of their work he was unceremoniously fired by the greedy owners. After that he said he couldn't afford to work for money. Became a consultant. The owners were growing rich. Millionaires were breeding billionaires. But Fred Taylor never saw the working of the American Plan. At 59 he broke down and died.
Tin Lizzie (Henry Ford). Of course we all know about Henry Ford, but here are a couple factoids you may not. His $5 a day salary to qualified workers was nearly twice the going rate. Qualified: You couldn't drink, smoke, gamble, read or think (The last two are Dos Passos'). He hired a "Peace Ship" and filled it with speakers and pacifists and sent it to Stockholm during WWI. But then he got cold feet. Two years later, he was manufacturing munitions. He said he'd give the profits back to the government, but there is no record that he ever did.
The Bitter Drink (Veblen). Read Looking Backward as a you married man. Famous for writing Theory of the Leisure Class which was put on the scholastic map by a famous review by Howell. This paper is famous for inventing the phrase "conspicuous consumerism." An athiest, and a man that believed in few manners as an excess of the leisured class, he did not get on well with society. The reason Dos Passos likes him is his mid-life writings: The Theory of Business Enterprise, The Instinct of Workmanship, The Vested Interests and the Common Man. They established a new diagram of society dominated by monopoly capital, etched in irony: the sabotage of life by the blind need for profits, the sabotage of production by business, a warlike society strangled by the beauracracies of the monopolies forced by the law of diminishing returns to grind down, more and more, the common man, for profits. Or the alternative of a new common-sense society dominated by the needs of the men and women who did the work, and the incredibly vast possibilities of peace and plenty offered by the progress of technology. Veblen hoped the working man would take over the machine of production before capital pushed it down into the dark again. Under the cover of WWI, capital cracked down, and American democracy was crushed. It was a bitter drink for Veblen, who died a bitter old man in 1929.
Art and Isadora (Isadora Duncan). A poor girl raised in San Francisco by her mother, Isodora had a beautiful artistic neck and expressive arms. She had no money for dance lessons, so she made her own dances up. She and her family travelled to NY where she danced. In Europe she invented primitivist faux-Grecian dance that became so popular that she started 3 dance schools. He beauty and gracefulness enraptured thousands, and she had many affairs, never marrying. She had money, but could never hold onto it long. She and her family were always one step ahead of the debtors. By the end of her life, her performing career had dwindled, and she became as notorious for her financial woes, scandalous love life, and frequent public drunkenness as for her contributions to the arts. In 1927 at the age of 50, she went for a ride in an open sports car driven by a young lover. As the car sped off, her long scarf wrapped around the axle and dragged her bodily from the car, killing her. Why Dos Passos thought this was an important biography, I have no idea.
Adagio Dancer (Rudoph Valentino). This'll be short. An Italian Immigrant who started in America as a taxi dancer, he took the name Valentino on the Vaudville circuit. He eventaully got his big break in Hollywood (he boxed well, had a good seat on a horse, and photographed well). He was every woman's dream gigolo by the time he died from a gastric ulcer at 31. Tens of thousands milled around outside while he lay in state, hundreds were trampled. 100,000 attended his funeral. A woman in London committed suicide. Every year on the anniversary of his death, flappers, sheiks and women dressed in black visit his tomb in the Hollywood Forever Cemetry.
The Campers at Kittyhawk (Wilbur and Orville Wright). Not sure why Dos Passos put this one here, other than to describe at this time the rapid advances in science and technology. He describes their early flights, up through about 1911, which is way out of the current time of the novel (should be about 1924 or 1925 here). I'll not go into the Wright Brothers' history. Everyone knows it.
Architect (Frank Lloyd Wright). Before getting his architecture training at U of Wisconsin, Frank had seen the dome in the new state capital building in Madison collapse. His training was in Viollet le Duc and Louis Sullivan, who invented everything in American architecture that Richardson had not. By a curious irony, the building that is most completely his is the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, which came through the 1923 earthquake unscathed. Building a building is building the lives of the workers and dwellers in the building.
Poor Little Rich Boy (William Randolph Hearst). His father struck it rich in the gold fields in 1849 California. Born in 1863, nothing was too good for Mrs. Hearst's boy. Mother used to pay children to play with him. The ones that could be bought he despised, and hankered after others. The boy had brains, appetites, an imperious will, but the mist of millions kept him tied always to the golden apron strings. At Harvard he was the business manager of the Lampoon. On return to California he asked his father if he could have the Examiner, a moribund sheet which his father had taken over for a bad debt. It grew in circulation and became the Monarch of the Dailies. He came out for the people initially, for Bryan in 1896, and fought against the railroads, utilities and their lawyers who were grabbing the state away from the first settlers. He eventually helped start the war with Spain to help spur circulation. After the war his editorials hammered on trusts, the G.O.P, Mark Hanna and McKinley so shrilly that after the assasination the Republicans considered Hearst at least partially to blame. He ran for a number of offices, but all his skill at putting his own thoughts into the skull of the straphanger failed to bridge the tiny Rubicon between amateur and professional politics. Dos Passos despises him because he came out against the reds after WWI.
Power Superpower (Samuel Insull). Born in London, began working for Edison at 21. Eventually turned Chicago Edison into ComEd. He monopolized public utilities and began using public money to spread his empire. Here's a quote of his: "My experience is that the greatest aid in the efficiency of labor is a long line of men waiting at the gate." At one time he controlled 1/12th of the power output of America. Cyrus S. Eaton was the David that brought down the Goliath. He started buying up stock in 3 Chicago utilities, scaring Insull into buying. When the price rose, he sold out, shaking down Insull for $20 million. Then the stock market crashed. Then it was found he was using public money to pay off his brother. He ran from prosecution to a number of European countries, eventually being extradited, tried and exonerated.
British Beaten at Mafeking
Noise Greets New Century
Marquis of Queensbury Dead
Court Sets Zola Free
Harriman shown as Rail Colossus
Mob Lynches After Prayer
The Sunbeam Movement is Spreading
Roosevelt is Made Leader of New Party
Five Men Die After Getting to South Pole
Six Unclad Bathing Girls Black Eyes of Horrid Man
Plumber has Hundred Loves
Brings Monkeys Home
Wilson Will Force Draft
Declaration of War
Abusing Flag to Be Punished, (also see the Espionage act of 1917)
Armies Clash at Verdun in Globe's Greatest Battle
Turks Flee Before Tommies at Gallipoli
War Decreases Marriages and Births
Debs Given Thirty Years in Prison
Bags Twentyeight Huns Singlehanded
Fertilizer Industry Stimulated by War
Three Hundred Thousand Russian Nobles Slain by Bolsheviki
Red Flag Flies on Baltic
Whole World is Short of Platinum
Leviathan Unable to Put to Sea
Republicans Getting Ready for the Heckling of Wilson
Ruthless War to Crush Reds
Mackay of Postal Calls Burleson a Bolshevik
Dempsey Knocks Out Willard in Third Round
Ex-Servicemen Demand Jobs
Lunatic Blows up Pittsburg Bank
Lutherans Drop Hell for Hades
Nun to Wed Gob
Giant Airship Breaks in Two in Midflight
Hurricane Sweeps South Florida
Enthralled by Daring Deed, City Cheers from Depths of Its Heart
Paper Blizzard Chokes Broadway
Crash Upsets Exchange
Police Turn Machine Guns on Colorado Mine Strikers