More Rugged Individualism

The pioneering hard-fisted, hard-boiled American Male will cheer campaign speeches on the benefits of rugged individualism and whistle laissez-faire whenever he has to keep up his courage in a financial crisis. He will grow turgidly eloquent on the benefits both to himself and society of doing just what he sees fit when and if he pleases. He will battle to his last breath against any code prescribing a uniform way of running his business, auditing his accounts, educating his children or divorcing his wives. Any form of regulation is to him a symptom of Bolshevik tyranny. But the one moment when he is terrified of freedom is when he buys his clothes. He is more afraid of wearing a bright orange necktie to his office than of carrying a red flag in a communist parade. —Harper’s Bazaar, 1934

Which Side Are You On?: Then & Now

The 1st Lineman probably would've been familiar or, at least, appreciative of Florence Reese's 1931 union ballad, "Which Side Are You On?" which was covered and popularized by Pete Seeger in the 60s. This past week, Ani DiFranco released the album, ¿What Side Are You On? last week on Tuesday, January 17 which includes a version of the song.

Reese's original lyrics are below, as is video of Ani DiFranco and Bruce Cockburn covering Seeger's version in 2009:

Come all of you good workers,

Good news to you I’ll tell,

Of how that good old union

Has come in here to dwell.

Which side are you on?

Which side are you on?

Which side are you on?

Which side are you on?

My daddy was a miner,

And I’m a miner’s son,

And I’ll stick with the union,

Till every battle’s won.

They say in Harlan County,

There are no neutrals there.

You’ll either be a union man,

Or a thug for J.H. Blair.

Oh, workers can you stand it?

Oh, tell me how you can.

Will you be a lousy scab,

Or will you be a man ?

Don’t scab for the bosses,

Don’t listen to their lies.

Us poor folks haven’t got a chance,

Unless we organize.

The Effects of Hunger

Squier, like many other wanderers during the Depression, probably hasn't had a good meal in 3-4 days and probably hasn't been eating regularly. He is also an alcoholic.

It is unlikely, however, that he suffers from Delerium tremens, the delerium and shakes that come from severe alcohol withdrawal. He would have to be regularly imbibing and absorbing large amounts of alcohol to get to this level, and for all we know, he might have not had anything to eat in a day or two.

What Squier likely does suffer from, however, is headaches, stomachache, general irritability, a difficulty concentrating, perhaps strain on his eye sight, diminished appetite, and a low libido. Although his body probably hasn't gone into complete starvation mode -- think of the images of African children in famine and prisoners and victims of Concentration Camps and Reeducation Camps -- his body has likely stopped metabolizing and absorbing food at a normal rate. That "Today's Special" meal he eats should probably get him through the day without a problem, but that beer he pounds might also be because it is a source of carbohydrates and hydration, as well as the alcohol he craves.

Finally, because he is not eating at normal intervals, it is quite possible that the meal he dumped on his system, after not eating in awhile, went right through him and gave him diarrhea. Which would make him more dehydrated.

shot in the gut

It is likely that Squier, while in pain, can move himself enough, especially with his arms, to move closer to Gabby and/or to fall upon her.

If Squier is shot and quickly dies after it is mostly likely due to internal bleeding in a vital organ, such as the liver, stomach, or, especially, the spleen. If you get shot in or through the spleen, you will likely die soon after. Moving around, which might help push the bullet further around in the organ, might even speed up the dying process as it will cause more bleeding.

Squier is able to move during this painful process because even though he anticipated Duke shooting him, human response to wounds like this still require the brain to fully process what is happening to the body.  In other words, the brain won't immediately stop the body from moving and responding to a fatal wound, so especially right after getting shot, Squier would be able to move himself.

For the sake of following the logic of the scene, it's probably best to assume that Squier does get shot in a vital organ like spleen because he dies within three minutes.

(I would like to thank my mother, the nurse, for help with this one.)

"Oklahoma City Massacre"

The "Oklahoma City Massacre"in The Petrified Forest is based on the Kansas City Massacre, which occurred in the summer of 1933 when a gang tried to free Frank "Jelly" Nash.  During a shootout at KC's Union Station between Nash's gang and law enforcement officers, four officers died. Nash was also killed during the shoot out.

Afterwards, the FBI tracked down and killed, in yet another shoot out, Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd in October of 1934.  It is still unknown whether Floyd was involved in the Kansas City Massacre or not, but he became the most important celebrity outlaw and the biggest focus for the FBI after Dillinger was located and killed in Chicago in July of that year.

Scutcheon?

In Act II, during the radio broadcast, the announcer reads a statement issued by the Governor of Arizona:  "As long as Mantee and his followers are at large a blot of shame will mar the proud scutcheon of these United States ...." (p. 40).

In this case, "scutcheon" takes on the meaning of "proud history" even lending itself to the connotation of "reputation."

Rugged Individualism

Herbert Hoover, POTUS 1923-33

As suspected, the term "rugged individualism" is not unique to the play.

We first hear the term used by the 1st Lineman in the opening moments of The Petrified Forest and, again, later on the play, to describe Alan Squier and Duke Mantee -- the last two apostles of rugged individualism.

Rugged individualism is a term coined by Herbert Hoover that describes a libertarian economic and political philosophy, even in times of economic depression. President Hoover felt that "rugged individualism" would be the best way for the Great Depression to end and that the government shouldn't intervene with social and economic programs or policies.

The Hollow Men

Squier asks Gabby towards the end of Act I if she's read "The Hollow Men" (p. 29). When she indicates that she hasn't, he says "Don't. It's discouraging."

"The Hollow Men," is a poem by T. S. Eliot that shares many of the common features of his more famous poem, "The Waste Land."  Although it is much shorter and pre-dates TWL it does require footnotes/hypertext to understand the ample allusions -- a good version can be found here.  The poem ends:

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Eliot was responding to the absolute failing of rationalization and human progress by the specter of World War I:  All of the progress of the Western world had ended in ugly trench warfare, suffering, and death.

N.B.: "The Hollow Men" has also been heard by Chicago audiences before -- when it was quoted at the end of Tracy Letts's August:  Osage County at Steppenwolf in 2007.

Liberty Bonds

Liberty Bonds were a war bond sold during World War I to finance the war.  Like all government bonds, Liberty Bonds allowed the government to borrow money from citizens at a low interest rate in order to finance military operations abroad. This sort of borrowing also controls inflation and, perhaps most importantly, gives citizens a way to participate in war operations even if they cannot enlist in the military. 

The campaign posters for Liberty Bonds capitalized on patriotism and the sense of patriotic duty for Americans to participate in this way.

Citizens who cashed their war bonds after 1934, however, had to deal with the problem of inflation and the now-illegal original term of the bond:  Originally, bond holders were supposed to redeem their bond for payment in gold, but that had become illegal a year before. 

Gold Hoarding

In April of 1933, FDR signed Executive Order 6102, otherwise known as "The Roosevelt Gold Confiscation Order," and the entirety of it can be found here.

In times of economic downturn, like our current one, the price of gold rises as a result of increase investment in it because it doesn't lose its value the way that dollars (or other currency) do during times of economic depression.

However, the hoarding of gold (whether in bullion, coin, or certificate), as the Roosevelt Administration saw it, banks potential wealth rather than circulating it, thus, causing further economic depression and stalling economic growth.

After FDR signed Exec Order 6102, individual citizens and corporate businesses holding an excess of $100 of gold coins had four months to exchange their gold for dollars at the rate of $20.67/troy ounce (which is about $350 in 2012).

This order eventually led to the Gold Reserve Act of 1934, which directed all Federal holdings of gold to  the Treasury.

"Andy Anderson"

Stay tuned for whomever Gramp's "Andy Anderson" is based on, but as far as I'm able to find, there is no actual criminal by that name.

"Nevada Tech"

Boze's school, obviously, doesn't exist nor does it appear to have ever existed.  In the '30s, Nevada only had the flagship university of the state -- The University of Nevada. The fact that both Gabby and Duke say they've never heard of does not mean that Boze is making it up, but rather than he played for a smaller state university (Cal State - Northride) or polytechnical college (Cal Tech) rather than a larger, better known football school (UCLA or Cal). In the movie version, he attends "Moby Tech," an equally fictional university.

Beer by the Bottle

Natty Boh ad, 1940s

Beer was not sold by the six-pack until 1938 and the practice became more widespread in the succeeding decades, with Baltimore's National Bohemian selling by the six-pack in 1940 and Pabst shortly thereafter.  However, Coca-cola was already sold in six-pack bottles which easily led to beer being purchased in the same quantity; this is probably the reason that, in the play, the customer orders "a half-dozen bottles of beer."

Before Prohibition, which ended on Dec 5, 1933, beer was only sold in bottles and had wire baling at the top (see above). After Prohibition, the cap was more commonly used. However, beer bottles were always brown (see below) at this time, as it was thought best for keeping the beer fresh.

Dufy?

Raoul Dufy, Interior with an Open Window, 1928

Raoul Dufy was a French Fauvist painter who began exhibiting his work in 1901/02 and eventually became a great mural painter for the public and on public buildings. Fauvism is most associated with the  work of Henri Matisse:  Early 20th c. modern artists who emphasized painterly qualities (brush strokes and the like -- the paint form of lo-fi, if you will) and strong color over the realism and verisimilitude of the Impressionists. 

The Electric Fairy, Building Mural for the Electric Company, 1937

Taos in the early 20th c.

William Herbert Dunton, The Horse Wrestler c. 1915

By the 1930s, Taos had an established community of artists, although some of the most famous artists we associate with Taos (i.e. Georgia O'Keefe) didn't settle there until the 30s. Artists began settling there shortly after the turn of the 20th century.  By 1915, an artists' collective had formed and in 1917 Mabel Dodge Luhan, a wealthy heiress settled in Taos, set up a European style salon, patronized artists, and began personally inviting artists such as O'Keefe and Ansel Adams. 

The works of these modern artists concentrated on the landscape of the Southwest and on Native American themes.  

How to sit like a lady

Although this has been addressed by e-mail, I will add it here for the sake of reference if need be:

Mrs. Chrisholm, according to old movies and to Emily Post, would have sat with her back up straight and her ankles crossed or her feet together, but not with her legs crossed.

For that matter, Mr. Chrisholm might cross his legs, but would not put his ankle up on his knee.

"Fluffs"

In the first line of the play the 1st Lineman says "And that's exactly what we got to come to, whether a lot of old fluffs back east like it or not"(6)

What exactly is meant by "fluff"? In rehearsal we wondering if it had the connotation of "fag."  It doesn't.  Here, in this line, it means more like "old fart" but it could also be a somewhat dismissive colloquial term for a young woman, but that was usually said as "a bit of a fluff."

Gabby's Villon

John Barrymore as Villon in a 1927 silent film

Excerpts from two poems by Francois Villon, a 15th c. French poet, are read in The Petrified Forest.  The first "pash" excerpt is read by Boze on pp. 13-14 and comes from Stanza VII of "The Complaint of the Fair Armouress" and the second excerpt is from "Ballad Written for a Bridegroom." Villon's poetry proved popular among Victorian poets in the 19th century and were translated by them.  The specific poems read by Gabby are translations by A. C. Swinburne, which means that the book that Gabby's mother sent her is one of two possible editions:  1. Ballads Done Into English from the French of Francois Villon, published by T. B. Mosher in 1904, or 2. A more costly special edition published by Spiral Press in 1933, The Lyrics of Francois Villon, Done Into English Verse By Algernon Charles Swinburne, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Ernest Henley, John Payne and Leonie Adams. The latter edition included wood-block prints by illustrator Howard Simon that accompanied each poem.  (It is, of course, somewhat odd that Gabby's mother was able to find either of these English editions in Bourges).

Francois Villon was a 15th c. French poet and outlaw, a fitting figure for The Petrified Forest. Shortly after Villon earned his MA at the University of Paris, he worked as a quasi-medical professional and as a teacher at the University.  This all came to an end around the age of 26 when he was involved in an incident that can only be described as a medieval alley rumble:  Villon, a woman named Isabelle, and a priest friend met up with another University man and another priest, some daggers were pulled, and the other priest died of his wounds.  Villon fled, was sentenced to banishment, and earned his living singing in inns. He was pardoned by the King for his crime and returned to Paris, but continued to get into trouble with the law for the rest of his life. He was most often accused and/or convicted of robbing churches.  He lived as a vagabond.  His poems reflect and even celebrate his world -- they are colloquial, full of language of the streets, and constantly refer to the prospect of death by hanging, the punishment for thievery.

Villon appeared in a few films and plays in the beginning of the 20th c. By the time Gabby's mother sent her the book, Americans had seen Villon in two silent films (1920 and 1927) and an operetta that was also later made into a silent film (1930).

The poem Gabby reads to Squier, "Ballad Written for  a Bridegroom" is actually subtitled "Which Villon Gave to a Gentleman Newly Married to Send to His Wife Whom He Had Won With the Sword." It refers to Robert VII d'Estouteville who may or may have not been acquainted with Villon personally.  There is no evidence to suggest, as Gabby does, that the Bridegroom was a friend of Villon's.  She might just like to think of it that way.

Gabby reads the first two stanzas of the "Bridegroom" to Squier because she likes it, but also because it signals the beginning of a relationship.  The poem serves to set up romance between the two characters. Other than that, the first two stanzas are not all that remarkable for a marriage poem.  The Villon poem is becomes more interesting because of its appearance in the final scene of the play.  Perhaps, we can think of the poem as book-ending the inclusion of romance, excitement, and possibility in Gabby's life. When Squier, a vagbond with an interesting story, appears in the middle of nowhere, she reads the two first stanzas. Later in the play, after Duke Mantee, the hostage situation, all the shooting, and Squier's sacrificial death, Gabby quotes part of the next stanza in the final scene (p. 73):

And, which is more, when grief about me clings

Through Fortune's fit or fume of jealousy,

You sweet kind eye beats down her threatenings

As wind doth smoke; such power sits in your eye.

Thus in your field my seed of harvestry

Thrives, for the fruit is like me that I set;

God bids me tend it with good husbandry;

This is the end for which we twain are met.

If we were reading this poem on its own outside of the play the image of marital fertility would be typical:  babies and the continuation of family lines.  Instead, Squier's death and bequest to Gabby enables her to get the hell out of Black Mesa and she prays that she will manage that inheritance well in order to live a fuller life:  They share a common piece of fate, but Squier's changes Gabby's for ever.

Deliveries to Black Mesa

It's 670 miles from Denver to Black Mesa, AZ so how did The Denver Post travel to Gramp?

He would have, most likely, received it through the mail.  By the 1930s, places like Black Mesa would have received newspapers from parcel post service and/or rural free delivery, two services available from USPS. Although I haven't been able to pin down any definitive statistics, it would have likely taken 2-5 business days for the paper to get to Black Mesa from Denver.  The time of year would have made it easier, as the Colorado winters would have prevented the postal service from going from Denver over the mountains to Black Mesa with any haste. I wonder--because they were a filling station, they would have probably also sold newspapers, no?

Another question, however, is how and how often did the petrol get to the Filling Station? There weren't pipelines at the time and the petrol company would have had to deliver the gas by truck at regular intervals.

Jason & the Legionnaires

Anti-communist Legionnaire political cartoon from 1919

When the American Legion formed in 1919 it was made up of veterans of WWI and was non-partisan. By the mid-1920s, the Legion became an outspoken opponent of communism, a proponent of isolationist policies, and, by 1933, a prominent supporter of FDR and New Deal programs. For the most part, the Legion in the 1930s organized and lobbied on behalf of members to the government.  These efforts included the eventual establishment of the VA. 

Although Jason and the Legionnaires might come off as an ad hoc militia in The Petrified Forest, there is no evidence that other Legion Posts acted this way and is probably a function of melodrama. 

How were hamburgers served in the 1930s?

On a bun.

Although it is somewhat disputed as to who was the absolute first to serve a hamburger on the proverbial bun, Billy Ingram, the founder of White Castle, revolutionized the mass distribution of hamburgers by selling his with a bun starting in 1921 (cf. Oxford Companion to American Food & Drink, p. 65). Following the expansion of the White Castle franchise, other hamburger joints took off and, too, served burgers on the bun. 

The vision of hamburger patties served on a bun took wider circulation with the creation of the "Wimpy" character in the comic strip and cartoon Popeye the Sailor Man. The strip began running in the early twenties and became an animated cartoon in 1933. Wimpy's phrase "I'll pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today" appeared in the strip in 1932. 

In the 1936 film version of the play, hamburgers are served on buns, not kaiser rolls. (For whatever reason, the grab application won't let me take a photo from the DVD player). 

Why is Tipping Un-American?

photo credit: NYT 

It would appear that Jason's signs and posters in his Filling Station and Bar-B-Q present a coherent and typical politics of a New Deal Democrat. In our discussions, we had difficulty placing his "TIPPING IS UN-AMERICAN--KEEP YOUR CHANGE!" handmade sign amidst his NRA (National Recovery Administration, which was the agency primarily responsible for setting up the New Deal), TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority), and American Legion posters.

The opposition to tipping in America began in the 1890s and continued through the 1930s.  Before the Civil War, tipping was uncommon in the U.S. By the late 19th century, however, the custom was imported from Europe and caused Americans to worry that tipping would create a master-and-servant dynamic between the tipper and tippee and hinder the ability for workers to earn a fair -- and agreed upon -- wage. Accusations of "un-American-ness" were hurled at the practice because it resembled European aristocratic and class stratified customs. Some recipients of tips resented being given them because they associated tips with low- or un-skilled labor (i.e. the shoe shine boy vs. a restaurant owner), but the largest argument against tipping was born out of concerns for fair wages and workers' rights. The argument against tipping aimed to support workers' rights to a fair wage provided by employers; if you think about it, tip-heavy professions, such as restaurant work, allows employers to divert the responsibility to pay their workers to the customers and their whims. By the turn of the century, editorials against tipping appeared in major newspapers, such as the NYT and the Washington Post, and opponents of tipping formed an anti-tipping union:

In 1904, the Anti-Tipping Society of America sprang up in Georgia, and its 100,000 members signed pledges not to tip anyone for a year. Leagues of traveling salesmen opposed the tip, as did most labor unions. In 1909, Washington became the first of six states to pass an anti-tipping law. But tipping persisted. The new laws rarely were enforced, and when they were, they did not hold up in court. By 1926, every anti-tipping law had been repealed. (source here)

Jason might come across as curmudgeonly and patriotic, but he would unlikely support "rugged individualism" and capitalism that lacks regulation over collective organization and social welfare. He just draws a hardline between New Deal social programs and Communism.