Rare Recording of Controversialist, Journalist and American Literary & Social Critic, H.L. Mencken

in Politics, Writing | September 4th, 2013

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpGzpqU-b04

Hen­ry Louis Menck­en (1880–1956) was a famous Amer­i­can jour­nal­ist, essay­ist, crit­ic of Amer­i­can life and cul­ture, and a schol­ar of Amer­i­can Eng­lish. An expert in so many fields, he was called “the Bal­ti­more Sage.” At the age of 22, Menck­en became man­ag­ing edi­tor of the Morn­ing Her­ald in his home­town of Bal­ti­more. But it was not only through his work as a jour­nal­ist that he was “as famous in Amer­i­ca as George Bernard Shaw was in Eng­land.” The influ­en­tial lit­er­ary crit­ic helped launch the South­ern and Harlem lit­er­ary renais­sances. With his lit­er­ary jour­nal The Smart Set, Menck­en paved the way for writ­ers such as F. Scott Fitzger­ald, Eugene O’Neill, Sin­clair Lewis, Theodore Dreis­er, and James Joyce. He also wrote sev­er­al books, most notably his mon­u­men­tal study The Amer­i­can Lan­guage.

“The two main ideas that run through all of my writ­ing, whether it be lit­er­ary crit­i­cism or polit­i­cal polemic are these: I am strong in favor of lib­er­ty and I hate fraud.” (source) His spir­it­ed defense of the free­dom of speech and of the press almost land­ed him in jail when he fought against the ban­ning of his sec­ond lit­er­ary jour­nal, The Amer­i­can Mer­cury.

This inter­view above was con­duct­ed by Menck­en’s col­league Don­ald Howe Kirkley of The Bal­ti­more Sun in a small record­ing room at the Library of Con­gress in Wash­ing­ton on June 30, 1948. It gives you a rare chance to hear his voice.

Bonus mate­r­i­al:

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.

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Trotsky, Russian Revolutionary, Makes Debut Performance Before Microphone (1932)

in History, Politics | February 15th, 2012

Many moons ago, we fea­tured a speech by Leon Trot­sky giv­en in his Mex­i­can exile in 1937. Turns out record­ings of his tele­vi­sion address­es go back even fur­ther. The short clip above was record­ed in Den­mark in 1932 and is titled “Trotzky makes debut per­for­mance before micro­phone”. (A lit­tle aside: The clip was pro­duced by Fox Movi­etone News, a news­reel that ran in the U.S. from 1928 to 1963. Would Fox still show some­thing like this today?) In Novem­ber 1932, Trot­sky left his exile in Turkey to accept an invi­ta­tion by the Dan­ish Social Demo­c­ra­t­ic Stu­dents’ Asso­ci­a­tion to come to Copen­hagen and speak about the Russ­ian Rev­o­lu­tion. You can read the text of the speech called “In Defence of Octo­ber” held on Novem­ber 27 here. There are also two impres­sive pho­tos secret­ly tak­en by a pho­to­jour­nal­ist. There was a lot of com­mo­tion sur­round­ing Trot­sky’s trip to Den­mark: the Dan­ish Com­mu­nist Par­ty, con­trolled by Stal­in, staged demon­stra­tions and the Roy­al Fam­i­ly protest­ed against his vis­it — they held Trot­sky respon­si­ble for the vio­lent deaths of their rel­a­tives, the Tsar and his fam­i­ly. Nev­er­the­less, Trot­sky deliv­ered his speech before an audi­ence of about 2,500. The video address was record­ed in Eng­lish two weeks lat­er, on Decem­ber 10, 1932.

To see oth­er famous lead­ers mak­ing their debut per­for­mances, check out Mahat­ma Gand­hi in his First Record­ed Video and Nel­son Mandela’s First-Ever Inter­view.

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.

 

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Way of Life: Rare Footage of the Hiroshima Aftermath, 1946

in Film, History, Life, Video - Politics/Society | May 3rd, 2011

The recent 9.0‑magnitude Tōhoku earth­quake and tsuna­mi, and sub­se­quent Fukushi­ma nuclear acci­dents were among the most dev­as­tat­ing envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ters in record­ed his­to­ry. The imme­di­ate con­se­quences are fright­en­ing, but their full, long-term impact remains an unset­tling mys­tery.

This, of course, isn’t the first time Japan has faced a nuclear emer­gency. After the World War II atom­ic bomb­ings of Hiroshi­ma and Nagasa­ki, the U.S. gov­ern­ment record­ed the raw after­math of Hiroshi­ma in can­did, grim detail (while Hol­ly­wood was busy lam­poon­ing Amer­i­ca’s nuclear obses­sion). Filmed in the spring of 1946 by the Depart­ment of Defense, Way of Life doc­u­ments how the peo­ple of Hiroshi­ma adapt­ed to life after the atom­ic bomb. Though the archival footage lacks sound, its imagery — mov­ing, heart­break­ing, deeply human — speaks vol­umes about the del­i­cate dual­i­ty of despair and resilience.

Maria Popo­va is the founder and edi­tor in chief of Brain Pick­ings, a curat­ed inven­to­ry of cross-dis­ci­pli­nary inter­est­ing­ness. She writes for Wired UK, The Atlantic and Desig­nOb­serv­er, and spends a great deal of time on Twit­ter.

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Phoenix Still Rising: Egypt After The Revolution

in Current Affairs, Film, Politics, Video - Politics/Society | May 3rd, 2011

Much has been said, tweet­ed and writ­ten about the 2011 Egypt­ian Rev­o­lu­tion, glo­ri­fy­ing it as one of the most land­mark tri­umphs of free­dom in recent his­to­ry. Yet the West­ern media has deliv­ered sur­pris­ing­ly lit­tle on its after­math, leav­ing the lived post-rev­o­lu­tion real­i­ty of the Egypt­ian peo­ple a near-mys­tery.

This beau­ti­ful short film by British film stu­dio Scat­tered Images offers a rare glimpse of a phoenix still strug­gling to rise from the ash­es of oppres­sion. With incred­i­ble visu­al elo­quence, the film peels away at the now-worn media iconog­ra­phy of the rev­o­lu­tion itself, reveal­ing how life after it has actu­al­ly changed — or has­n’t — as Egypt remains a nation in tran­si­tion, with a future yet to be decid­ed.

Polit­i­cal­ly, there is a vac­u­um. The rev­o­lu­tion demand­ed a gov­ern­ment account­able to the peo­ple and ruled by trans­par­ent insti­tu­tions. But now, the only ruler is uncer­tain­ty.

Maria Popo­va is the founder and edi­tor in chief of Brain Pick­ings, a curat­ed inven­to­ry of cross-dis­ci­pli­nary inter­est­ing­ness. She writes for Wired UK, The Atlantic and Desig­nOb­serv­er, and spends a great deal of time on Twit­ter.

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Rare Footage: Home Movie of FDR’s 1941 Inauguration

in Film, History, Politics | April 19th, 2011

The vin­tage video above is an excerpt from a 16 mm home movie show­ing Pres­i­dent Franklin Delano Roo­sevelt on Jan­u­ary 20, 1941, the day of his Third Inau­gu­ra­tion. This silent col­or movie was shot by FDR’s son-in-law (Clarence) John Boet­tiger, who was then work­ing for the Motion Pic­ture Asso­ci­a­tion of Amer­i­ca, and the qual­i­ty of this rare footage is quite out­stand­ing. Watch the full 14-minute ver­sion here.

FDR can first be seen at 2:45, heav­i­ly sup­port­ed by his old­est son James. This is one of the rare moments on film where Roo­sevelt can actu­al­ly be seen walk­ing, and it’s obvi­ous how dif­fi­cult it was for him to walk after polio left him par­a­lyzed from the hips down in 1921. Next, FDR is seen on the pres­i­den­tial plat­form with his wife Eleanor and Chief Jus­tice Charles Evans Hugh­es, tak­ing the Oath of Office and giv­ing his Inau­gur­al Address. The full text of the address can be read cour­tesy of Yale Law School, and a high-res­o­lu­tion scan of the Inau­gu­ra­tion Cer­e­monies Pro­gram has been uploaded by The Library of Con­gress.

FDR was the first Amer­i­can pres­i­dent to suc­cess­ful­ly run for a third term due to the pre­car­i­ous inter­na­tion­al sit­u­a­tion in 1941. (Get the audio file of FDR’s State of the Union from Jan­u­ary 6, 1941 here). After George Wash­ing­ton declined to run for a third term in 1796, it had become an unwrit­ten rule to fol­low his lead. But it was not until the 22nd Amend­ment from 1947/1951 (“No per­son shall be elect­ed to the office of the Pres­i­dent more than twice.”) that this restric­tion was enshrined into law. FDR was, of course, elect­ed for a fourth term in 1945, but died of a mas­sive stroke on April 12, 1945.

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.

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