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Meridel Le Sueur
Meridel Le Sueur (February 22, 1900, Murray, Iowa – November 14, 1996, Hudson, Wisconsin) was an American writer associated with the proletarian literature movement of the 1930s and 1940s. Born as Meridel Wharton, she assumed the name of her mother's second husband, Arthur Le Sueur, the former Socialist mayor of Minot, North Dakota. Life and career Le Sueur, the daughter of William Winston Wharton and Marian "Mary Del" Lucy, was born into a family of social and political activists. Her grandfather was a supporter of the Protestant fundamentalist temperance movement, and she "grew up among the radical farmer and labor groups ... like the Populists, the Farmers' Alliance and the Wobblies, the Industrial Workers of the World." Le Sueur was heavily influenced by poems and stories that she heard from Native American women. "After a year studying dance and physical fitness at the American College of Physical Education in Chicago, Illinois, Meridel moved to New York City, where she ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde (; born Audrey Geraldine Lorde; February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992) was an American writer, womanist, radical feminist, professor, and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet," who "dedicated both her life and her creative talent to confronting and addressing injustices of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia." As a poet, she is well known for technical mastery and emotional expression, as well as her poems that express anger and outrage at civil and social injustices she observed throughout her life. As a spoken word artist, her delivery has been called powerful, melodic, and intense by the Poetry Foundation. Her poems and prose largely deal with issues related to civil rights, feminism, lesbianism, illness and disability, and the exploration of black female identity. Early life Lorde was born in New York City on February 18, 1934 to Caribbean immigrants. Her father, Frederick Byron Lorde (known as Byron), hai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hollywood, Los Angeles
Hollywood is a neighborhood in the Central Los Angeles, central region of Los Angeles, California. Its name has come to be a metonymy, shorthand reference for the Cinema of the United States, U.S. film industry and the people associated with it. Many notable film studios, such as Columbia Pictures, Walt Disney Studios (division), Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., and Universal Pictures, are located near or in Hollywood. Hollywood was incorporated as a municipality in 1903. It was Merger (politics), consolidated with the city of Los Angeles in 1910. Soon thereafter a prominent film industry emerged, having developed first on the East Coast. Eventually it became the most recognizable in the world. History Initial development H.J. Whitley, a real estate developer, arranged to buy the E.C. Hurd ranch. They agreed on a price and shook hands on the deal. Whitley shared his plans for the new town with General Harrison Gray Otis (publisher), Harrison Gray Otis, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Counterculture Of The 1960s
The counterculture of the 1960s was an anti-establishment cultural phenomenon that developed throughout much of the Western world in the 1960s and has been ongoing to the present day. The aggregate movement gained momentum as the civil rights movement in the United States continued to grow, and with the intensification of the Vietnam War, it would later become revolutionary to some. As the 1960s progressed, widespread social tensions also developed concerning other issues, and tended to flow along generational lines regarding human sexuality, women's rights, traditional modes of authority, rights of non-white people, end of racial segregation, experimentation with psychoactive drugs, and differing interpretations of the American Dream. Many key movements related to these issues were born or advanced within the counterculture of the 1960s. As the era unfolded, what emerged were new cultural forms and a dynamic subculture that celebrated experimentation, modern incarnations of B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Feminist
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male point of view and that women are treated unjustly in these societies. Efforts to change this include fighting against gender stereotypes and improving educational, professional, and interpersonal opportunities and outcomes for women. Feminist movements have campaigned and continue to campaign for women's rights, including the right to vote, run for public office, work, earn equal pay, own property, receive education, enter contracts, have equal rights within marriage, and maternity leave. Feminists have also worked to ensure access to contraception, legal abortions, and social integration and to protect women and girls from rape, sexual harassment, and domestic violence. Changes in female dress standards and acceptable physical activiti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Girl (novel)
''The Girl'' (1939; 1978) is a novel by Meridel Le Sueur set during Prohibition and chronicling the development of a young woman from a naive small-town girl into a participant in a bank robbery. Plot It tells the story of a nameless girl from rural Minnesota who works in a bar in St. Paul. Clara, a fellow waitress working as a prostitute on the side, takes the girl under her wing as she learns the rudimentaries of love and sex, but also of rape, prostitution, abortion, and domestic violence. Along with the bar-owner Belle and the labor organizer Amelia, Clara and the girl watch their unemployed men self-destruct one by one under the grinding conditions of the Depression. Impregnated by her lover Butch, the girl secretly defies his demand that she get an abortion, hoping that the money from a bank robbery will enable them to get married. However, Butch and three other men are shot and killed during the crime, and the girl, dependent on state assistance during her pregnancy, is fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minnesota
Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to intensive agriculture; deciduous forests in the southeast, now partially cleared, farmed, and settled; and the less populated North Woods, used for mining, forestry, and recreation. Roughly a third of the state is covered in forests, and it is known as the "Land of 10,000 Lakes" for having over 14,000 bodies of fresh water of at least ten acres. More than 60% of Minnesotans live in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area, known as the "Twin Cities", the state's main political, economic, and cultural hub. With a population of about 3.7 million, the Twin Cities is the 16th largest metropolitan area in the U.S. Other minor metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas in the state include Duluth, Mankato, Moorhead, Rochester, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The American Mercury
''The American Mercury'' was an American magazine published from 1924Staff (Dec. 31, 1923)"Bichloride of Mercury."''Time''. to 1981. It was founded as the brainchild of H. L. Mencken and drama critic George Jean Nathan. The magazine featured writing by some of the most important writers in the United States through the 1920s and 1930s. After a change in ownership in the 1940s, the magazine attracted conservative writers, including William F. Buckley. A second change in ownership in the 1950s turned the magazine into a far-right and virulently anti-Semitic publication. It was published monthly in New York City. The magazine went out of business in 1981, having spent the last 25 years of its existence in decline and controversy. History H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan had previously edited ''The Smart Set'' literary magazine, when not producing their own books and, in Mencken's case, regular journalism for ''The Baltimore Sun''. With their mutual book publisher Alfred A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Masses
''New Masses'' (1926–1948) was an American Marxist magazine closely associated with the Communist Party USA. It succeeded both ''The Masses'' (1912–1917) and ''The Liberator''. ''New Masses'' was later merged into '' Masses & Mainstream'' (1948–1963). With the coming of the Great Depression in 1929 America became more receptive to ideas from the political Left and ''New Masses'' became highly influential in intellectual circles. The magazine has been called “the principal organ of the American cultural left from 1926 onwards." History Early years ''New Masses'' was launched in New York City in 1926 as part of the Workers (Communist) Party of America's publishing stable, produced by a communist leadership but making use of the work of an array of independent writers and artists.Paul Buhle, ''Marxism in the USA: From 1870 to the Present Day'' (London: Verson, 1987), p. 172. The magazine was established to fill a void caused by the gradual transition of ''The Workers Mon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagion began around September and led to the Wall Street stock market crash of October 24 (Black Thursday). It was the longest, deepest, and most widespread depression of the 20th century. Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide gross domestic product (GDP) fell by an estimated 15%. By comparison, worldwide GDP fell by less than 1% from 2008 to 2009 during the Great Recession. Some economies started to recover by the mid-1930s. However, in many countries, the negative effects of the Great Depression lasted until the beginning of World War II. Devastating effects were seen in both rich and poor countries with falling personal income, prices, tax revenues, and profits. International trade fell by more than 50%, unemployment in the U.S. rose to 23% and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Conroy
John Wesley Conroy (December 5, 1899 - February 28, 1990) was a leftist American writer,"Jack Conroy." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 29 Oct. 2009, also known as a Worker-Writer,AP, . "Jack Conroy, Novelist, 91." New York Times 02 Mar 1990, best known for his contributions to “proletarian literature,” fiction and nonfiction about the life of American workers during the early decades of the 20th century."Inventory of the Jack Conroy Papers." The Newberry Library Chicago. 2003. The Newberry Library, Web. 29 Oct 2009. Background "Jack" Conroy was born John Wesley Conroy to Irish immigrants on December 5, 1899, in the coal mining camp of Monkey Nest near Moberly, Missouri.""Jack Conroy." Moberly Area Community College. Moberly Area Community College, Web. 29 Oct 2009. Elements of his childhood experiences growing up in a mining camp can be seen in his Depression-era novels, '' The Disinherited'' and '' A World to Win''. Career Though he did ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nelson Algren
Nelson Algren (born Nelson Ahlgren Abraham; March 28, 1909 – May 9, 1981) was an American writer. His 1949 novel ''The Man with the Golden Arm'' won the National Book Award and was adapted as the 1955 film of the same name. Algren articulated the world of "drunks, pimps, prostitutes, freaks, drug addicts, prize fighters, corrupt politicians, and hoodlums". Art Shay singled out a poem Algren wrote from the perspective of a "halfy," street slang for a legless man on wheels. Shay said that Algren considered this poem to be a key to everything he had ever written. The protagonist talks about "how forty wheels rolled over his legs and how he was ready to strap up and give death a wrestle." According to Harold Augenbraum, "in the late 1940s and early 1950s he was one of the best known literary writers in America." The lover of French writer Simone de Beauvoir, he is featured in her novel '' The Mandarins'', set in Paris and Chicago. He was called "a sort of bard of the down-and-oute ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. (; February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer and the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature winner "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social perception." He has been called "a giant of American letters." During his writing career, he authored 33 books, with one book coauthored alongside Edward Ricketts, including 16 novels, six non-fiction books, and two collections of short stories. He is widely known for the comic novels ''Tortilla Flat'' (1935) and ''Cannery Row'' (1945), the multi-generation epic '' East of Eden'' (1952), and the novellas ''The Red Pony'' (1933) and ''Of Mice and Men'' (1937). The Pulitzer Prize–winning ''The Grapes of Wrath'' (1939) is considered Steinbeck's masterpiece and part of the American literary canon. In the first 75 years after it was published, it sold 14 million copies. Most of Steinbeck's work is set in central California, particularly in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
