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1936: Books and Literature

Nov12

Published in 1936:
The A.B.C. Murders, Murder in Mesopotamia, and Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie.
Double Indemnity by James M. Cain. Cain’s novella is the source for the screenplay for this movie that I watched last summer, starring Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck.
Jamaica Inn by Daphne duMaurier.
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. This book was the #1 fiction bestseller of 1936, and of course, it went on to become the 1939 award-winning movie of the same title.
The Allegory of Love by C.S. Lewis.
Absalom! Absalom! by William Faulkner.
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

'Life' photo (c) 2007, Jennifer - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/Also in 1936:
Life magazine is first published.

The Carnegie Medal for excellence in children’s literature, published in the U.K., is created and awarded for the first time to Arthur Ransome for his book Pigeon Post.

Newbery Medal for children’s literature is awarded to Carol Ryrie Brink’s Caddie Woodlawn. Caddie has gotten some flack and bad press in recent years for its stereotypical and inaccurate portrayal of Native Americans. But I think this practice of reevaluating classic literature by modern PC standards is spoiler-y. Caddie Woodlawn is a good story, and the Native Americans in the book are portrayed as a child of Caddie Woodlawn’s era would probably have viewed them. ‘Nuff said.

Best-selling authors of 1936, besides Margaret Mitchell were: Sinclair Lewis, Lloyd C. Douglas, Rebecca West, Aldous Huxley, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, and Clarence Day.

1936: Events and Inventions

Nov11

January 28, 1936. King George V of England dies, leaving his oldest son Edward to become king.

'Volkswagen Käfer' photo (c) 2009, Dmitry Klimenko - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/February 26, 1936. The “People’s Car”, Volkswagen, is born. Hitler inaugurates the first factory to build the cars that he believes will do for Germany what Henry Ford’s automobiles did for the United States, make ordinary Germans, car owners and drivers.

March 7, 1936. In violation of the Versailles Treaty, Hitler’s troops march into the Rhineland, territory that was ceded by Germany to France after World War I. Hitler is gambling that the French will not want to go to war over the Rhineland, and they don’t. Hitler proposes a new treaty that will “guarantee peace for the next 25 years.”

April 28, 1936. Prince Farouk becomes King of Egypt, following the death of his father.

April 30, 1936. The Italian army takes Addis Ababa, the capital of Abyssinia (Ethiopia), crushing the forces of Haile Selassie, the current ruler of Ethiopia. The Italian air force drops mustard gas on the civilians and military forces in order to pacify the capital. By May 9th, Mussolini boasts, “Italy at last has her empire. It is a Fascist empire because it bears the indestructible sign of the will and power of Rome.” (Fascism, according to my dictionary, “tends to include a belief in the supremacy of one national or ethnic group, a contempt for democracy, an insistence on obedience to a powerful leader, and a strong demagogic approach.”)

June 8, 1936. New French Premier Leon Blum, a socialist, promises the French people, suffering from the worldwide economic depression, pay raises, a 40-hour work week, two weeks per year of paid vacation, collective bargaining rights, and binding arbitration in labor disputes.

July, 1936. The giant German airship, Hindenburg, crosses the Atlantic in a record time of 46 hours.

'El Correo Español' photo (c) 2010, Las Mentiras de El Correo Español - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/July 19, 1936. Generalissimo Francisco Franco lands Fascist troops in Cadiz coming from Morocco to take over the Spanish government. Franco’s troops move through Spain to Madrid, the capital, and tales of horrible atrocities are told from both sides of the civil war. In Barcelona and Madrid, there are reports of assassinations and house searches for rebels and arms. In Badajoz in August Fascist soldiers line Loyalists (Republicans) up against a wall and shoot them after a Fascist victory.

October, 1936. The $120 million Hoover Dam opens on the Colorado River between Nevada and Arizona.

December 11, 1936. King Edward VIII of England abdicates the throne so that he can marry Wallis Simpson, a twice-divorced American. The king will be succeeded by his younger brother, Albert George (George VI). (Watch the Academy Award-winning movie, The King’s Speech, to see a dramatized version of the year’s events in regard to the British monarchy and the effects of those events on younger brother Albert George, “Bertie”. It’s a wonderfully inspiring movie.)

1934: Movies

Nov11

Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night, starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, becomes a smash hit and the first of Capra’s great screen classics. It Happened One Night is the first film to win all 5 of the major Academy Awards – Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Picture. Gable and Colbert receive their only Oscars for this film.

Walt Disney’s Donald Duck makes his first appearance in the cartoon, The Little Wise Hen.

Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man detective thriller novel becomes a movie, starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles.

In Germany, Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler’s favorite film director, makes a documentary about the 1934 Nuremberg congress of the Nazi Party titled Triumph of the Will. The film made her famous because of the innovative techniques she used: moving cameras, the use of long focus lenses to create a distorted perspective, aerial photography, and revolutionary approach to the use of music and cinematography. It has become an example of excellent filmmaking used as propaganda.

You can watch the entire movie on youtube. I watched the first half hour of the nearly two hour film, and it’s worth seeing to begin to understand what a phenomenon, a cult celebrity, Hitler had already become by 1934. In the movie Hitler comes to Nuremberg out of the clouds (in an airplane), like a god. And the people, women and children mostly, line the streets and shout out their praise and adulation. The music is joyful and triumphant. Night falls on a waiting, expectant crowd who are only kept from mobbing the building where Hitler has come to stay by brown-shirted Nazi guards.

Then, dawn breaks upon rows and rows of tents where the strong young Aryan boys and men come out and meet the day. They engage in sporting contests, running and wrestling. (It is sobering to think of how many of those boys would be dead within ten years.) Later in the film, Hitler reviews rank upon rank of the “German Labor Service”, young men who have “enlisted” to build the new Germany. There is martial singing, and shouting, and fireworks, and the young men are exhorted to “work for the Fuhrer.”

Amazing stuff.

Riefenstahl wrote in her memoir about hearing Hitler speak for the first time: “”I had an almost apocalyptic vision that I was never able to forget. It seemed as if the Earth’s surface were spreading out in front of me, like a hemisphere that suddenly splits apart in the middle, spewing out an enormous jet of water, so powerful that it touched the sky and shook the earth.” She was, indeed, a Nazi true believer, as were many, many of the German people.

Almost Zero by Nikki Grimes

Nov9

Almost Zero: A Dyamonde Daniel Book by Nikki Grimes. Cybils nominee: Early Chapter Books.

I’ve now read three books by prolific author Nikki Grimes, and I’m becoming a fan. In Almost Zero, Ms. Grimes creates a character who’s lovable, fallible, and redeemable. Dyamonde wants a pair of red (her favorite color), high-top sneakers, and she wants them NOW! Acting on bad advice from a schoolmate, Dyamonde tells her mother, “I need red ones, and you have to get them for me.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re my mother, and mothers have to take care of their children, and you have to get them for me. It’s your job!”

Dyamonde’s mother responds with an interesting ploy, and the lesson begins. Yes, there is a lesson in this book, but the moral never overwhelms the story. Dyamonde is an engaging character with a basically compassionate nature, but it takes a reasoned response from mom and a tragedy with a classmate to get Dyamonde to see what’s really more important in life than red high-topped sneakers.

Among Nikki Grimes award-winning books, I have read The Road to Paris and A Girl Called Mister, both for older middle grade and young adult readers, and now this third book in the Dyamonde Daniel series. Ms. Grimes has also written a biography, Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope, multiple picture books, verse novels, and books of poetry.

Other books in this series:
Make Way for Dyamonde Daniel.
Rich: A Dyamonde Daniel Book.

*This book is nominated for a Cybils Award, and I am a judge for the first round thereof. However, no one paid me any money, and nobody knows which books will get to be finalists or which ones will get the awards. In other words, this review reflects my opinion and Z-baby’s and nothing else.

1935: Events and Inventions

Nov7

March 16, 1935. Adolf Hitler announces German rearmament in violation of the Versailles Treaty.

'Middle East, 1925' photo (c) 2007, Gabriel - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/March 21, 1935. Persia is officially renamed Iran.

June, 1935. Bolivia and Paraguay sign an armistice to end their three-year dispute over the Chaco region.

June 10, 1935. Alcoholics Anonymous is founded in Akron, Ohio by William G. Wilson and Dr. Robert Smith.

August 14, 1935. United States President Franklin Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act into law, introducing welfare for the sick, old, and unemployed.

September 15, 1935. Hitler’s Nuremburg Decrees deprive German Jews of their citizenship and ban them from a long list of jobs, including teaching and journalism. Existing marriages between non-Jews and Jews are now illegal, and those couples who will not divorce are subject to imprisonment.

October 3, 1935. Italy invades Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in North Africa.

October 20, 1935. After 12 months of long and difficult marching and fighting, Mao and his diminished Communist army reach relative safety. The Long March is ended, but the Communists are still on the defensive against Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang troops.

November 14-15 1935. Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaims Philippine Islands a free commonwealth. The Commonwealth of Philippines becomes semi-independent with its own elected government and constitution and is promised full independence after a suitable period of time.

'Humble Beginning' photo (c) 2009, JD Hancock - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

December, 1935. Monopoly, a new board game produced by the company Parker Brothers, goes on sale in the U.S. for $2.50.

1934: Events and Inventions

Nov7

February 21, 1934. Nicaraguan rebel leader Augusto César Sandino is assassinated in Managua, Nicaragua by the National Guard controlled by General Anastasio Somoza García, who will go on to seize power in a coup d’état two years later, establishing a family dynasty that would rule Nicaragua for over forty years.

March 1, 1934. The Japanese install Pu-yi, once Emperor of China, as puppet emperor of Manchukuo (Manchuria). The young emperor will only be allowed to carry out Japanese policies for the former province of China called by its new Japanese name, Manchukuo.

'Hitler and Rohm, leader of the Nazi SA' photo (c) 2010, Rupert Colley - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/May 23, 1934. Outlaw bank robbers Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker are shot dead by police in an ambush in Louisiana. The couple had been engaged in a crime spree across Texas, robbing banks, small stores and gas stations. They also killed at least nine police officers and several civilians.

May 28, 1934. In Canada, the Dionne quintuplets are born, the first set of quintuplets to survive birth. After four months with their family, they are made wards of the King for the next nine years under the Dionne Quintuplets’ Guardianship Act, 1935. The government and those around them begin to profit by making them a significant tourist attraction in Ontario.

June 30, 1934. Hitler arrests and executes the leaders of the German Storm Troopers (SA or “brown shirts”) in what is called “The Night of the Long Knives.” Hitler has been worried about Brownshirt leader Ernst Rohm’s independence and lack of allegiance to Hitler alone. (The picture shows Hitler with Rohm who was executed on Hitler’s orders.)

July 25, 1935. Austrian Nazis assassinate chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss during a failed coup attempt.

August 2, 1934. Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of Germany, becoming head of state as well as Chancellor.

August 18, 1934. Alcatraz Prison, built on a large rock in the middle of San Francisco Bay, opens as an “escape-proof” federal penitentiary, designed to house the most dangerous of federal criminals.

'Alcatraz' photo (c) 2008, Dennis Matheson - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

October 9, 1934. King Alexander of Yugoslavia and French foreign minister Louis Barthou are assassinated in Marseilles by a Croatian nationalist.

October 16, 1934. The Long March of the Chinese Communists begins. After breaking through a Nationalist Chinese blockade, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai lead the Communist First Front Army on a 600-mile journey across southwestern China. Pursued by the Nationalist Chinese Army (Kuomingtang) and dogged by poor weather conditions, food, clothing and equipment shortages, and hostile local tribes, the Communists will escape to Shaanxi Province but will lose nine-tenths of their army on the way.

1933: Events and Inventions

Nov6

January 30, 1933. Adolf Hitler is appointed chancellor of Germany by President von Hindenburg. The Chancellor of Germany is the head of the government of Germany. According to the Weimar Constitution of 1919, the Chancellor is appointed by the President and responsible to Parliament. The 44-year old Hitler has come to power as the government and economic systems in Germany are on the verge of complete collapse.

January, 1933. The Spanish government authorizes martial law as political violence causes almost 100 deaths in Spain.

February 28, 1933. A mysterious fire burns down the Reichstag, the building that houses the German Parliament. Hitler accuses the communists of starting the fire and persuades President von Hindenburg to suspend all freedom of speech and assembly in Germany.

March 4, 1933. The Parliament of Austria is suspended because of a disagreement over procedure; Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss becomes a virtual dictator of Austria.

March 22, 1933. Portugal’s new constitution gives the government the right to suspend all individual civil liberties. Antonio Oliveira Salazar rules Portugal as a dictator.

April 7, 1933. Beer is legalized in the United States, eight months before the full repeal of Prohibition in December.

'Mahatma Gandhi' photo (c) 2007, César Blanco - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/August, 1933. Indian activist Mahatma Gandhi is released from a prison hospital in Poona after a five-day hunger strike.

October 17,1933. Albert Einstein arrives in the United States as a refugee from Nazi Germany; he accepts a position at Princeton University.

October, 1933. More than 9000 Arabs riot in protest against Jewish emigration to Palestine.

December, 1933. Happy days are here again! The end of Prohibition in the United States, as the 21st amendment is ratified by the final state to ratify, Utah.

1933: Arts and Entertainment

Nov6

'Marlene Dietrich' photo (c) 2009, FLÁVIA PESSOA - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/German film star Marlene Dietrich, who now lives in Hollywood, has created a new fashion trend with her costume in the movie, Morocco—men’s clothing for women. In the movie she wears a man’s top hat and tails, and she often appears in public in men’s suit clothes, carrying a cane and smoking a cigarette. The Dietrich look, called “Dietrickery”, has caught on, especially among the rich and famous.

In March, the movie King Kong has actress Fay Wray playing opposite a giant gorilla, Knig Kong, who dangles her from the top of the Empire State Building.

In November, the new film version of Louisa May Alcott’s novel Little Women starring the fresh new actress Katharine Hepburn is released. Hepburn plays Jo, the tomboy protagonist of the novel.
'Katharine Hepburn' photo (c) 2010, kate gabrielle - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
Hit records of 1933:
“Sophisticated Lady” by Duke Ellington.
“Did You Ever See A Dream Walking?” by Eddy Duchin.
“We’re in the Money” by Dick Powell.
“Just An Echo In the Valley” by Bing Crosby; also version by Rudy Vallee.
“Lazy Bones” by Ted Lewis Band; also version by Don Redman’s Band.
“Let’s All Sing Like the Birdies Sing” by Ben Bernie.
“Night and Day” by Eddy Duchin.
“Shadow Waltz” by Bing Crosby.
“You’re Getting To Be A Habit With Me” by Bing Crosby with Guy Lombardo’s Royal Canadians.
“Stormy Weather” by Ethel Waters

Small Acts of Amazing Courage by Gloria Whelan

Nov4

Cybils nominee: Middle Grade Fiction. Nominated by Rebecca Herman.

Small Acts of Amazing Courage takes place in a river town in southeastern India. It is 1919 and World War I has been over for six months. During the war, more than a million Indian men fought alongside the British. Rosalind’s father led a battalion of Indian soldiers, the Gurkha Rifles. Now that the war is over, the British in India have returned to their comfortable lives of servants and clubs. ~Author’s Note by Gloria Whelan

Rosalind is a well-written character. She’s fifteen years old and just independent enough to get into trouble, which of course is necessary for a good story, and yet she still respects her parents and wants to please them. Rosalind has ideas and adventures and, well, spunk.

The setting of the book, India, is almost another character in the story. India is portrayed as the anti-Britain: colorful, messy, dangerous, and full of life, while England is drab, gray, safe, and lifeless. Rosalind’s older brother died in England when he was sent there to go to school, but India is the place where Rosalind’s aunt begins to come alive for the first time in her repressed and circumscribed life.

From my reading of history, Ms. Whelan over-simplifies the politics and cultural encounters of the time period. Gandhi and his followers are, of course, the good guys, and anyone who questions the wisdom of Indian independence is a patronizing colonialist, overbearing and/or willfully ignorant. Rosalind’s father falls into this category, as do most of the British residents of the Raj, the British mandate in India.

And Hinduism is, as a matter of course, presented as an interesting and colorful set of stories and beliefs that enrich the lives of the Indian people and of those British people who are open-minded enough to listen. Multicultural PC aboundeth. Christianity is not mentioned, but it is implied that India is the best place, has the longest and wisest history, and worships the best gods of all. If only we could all just get along as they do in India! The only differences between Hindus and Muslims that are mentioned are related to dietary practice, and surely what we eat can’t be a huge obstacle to peace in an independent India.

But I nitpick, probably because I’ve been reading a lot about the time period. The book tells a good story in which personal freedom and national freedom are paralleled. If the narrative features political changes that are taking place in India at the time without including some of the problems that were inherent in those political changes, well, the book isn’t about the conflict between Hindus and Muslims. Nor is it about the poverty in India that is a direct result of some of the religious practices and beliefs of Hinduism. The story does include an episode that demonstrates the evils of the caste system and its effect on the Dalits of the time. And that little episode is left, without preaching, to speak for itself.

So, I leave the book to speak for itself. I enjoyed the story, but I also knew that there was more to be known and written about India and its culture and its independence movement than could be contained in this small book.