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Somebody In Boots
''Somebody in Boots'' is writer Nelson Algren's first novel, based on his personal experiences of living in Texas during the Great Depression. The novel was published by Vanguard Press in 1935. The title refers to someone with material well-being and authority, as poor folk and the powerless wore shoes or went barefoot. The bosses and police feared by the poor and downtrodden wear boots, which not only symbolize their power and relative affluence, but can be used as weapons against them. Plot Cass McKay is a poor illiterate young man set adrift by the Depression. He is a southerner, a "Final Descendant of the South", one of the "wild and hardy tribe that had given Jackson and Lincoln birth... slaveless yeomen who had never cared for slaves or land...." Cass lives in the Rio Grande Valley in West Texas in a shack "like a casual box on the border; wooden and half-accidental" with his father, his brother (a World War I vet disabled by exposure to poison gas during the war), and sist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University of Illinois system and was founded in 1867. Enrolling over 56,000 undergraduate and graduate students, the University of Illinois is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the country. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is a member of the Association of American Universities and is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". In fiscal year 2019, research expenditures at Illinois totaled $652 million. The campus library system possesses the second-largest university library in the United States by holdings after Harvard University. The university also hosts the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and is home to the fastest supercomputer on a university campus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1935 American Novels
Events January * January 7 – Italian premier Benito Mussolini and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval conclude Franco-Italian Agreement of 1935, an agreement, in which each power agrees not to oppose the other's colonial claims. * January 12 – Amelia Earhart becomes the first person to successfully complete a solo flight from Hawaii to California, a distance of 2,408 miles. * January 13 – A plebiscite in the Saar (League of Nations), Territory of the Saar Basin shows that 90.3% of those voting wish to join Germany. * January 24 – The first canned beer is sold in Richmond, Virginia, United States, by Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company. February * February 6 – Parker Brothers begins selling the board game Monopoly (game), Monopoly in the United States. * February 13 – Richard Hauptmann is convicted and sentenced to death for the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh Jr. in the United States. * February 15 – The discovery and clinical development of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Federal Writers' Project
The Federal Writers' Project (FWP) was a federal government project in the United States created to provide jobs for out-of-work writers during the Great Depression. It was part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a New Deal program. It was one of a group of New Deal arts programs known collectively as Federal Project Number One or Federal One. The FWP employed thousands of people and produced hundreds of publications, including state guides, city guides, local histories, oral histories, ethnographies, and children's books. In addition to writers, the project provided jobs to unemployed librarians, clerks, researchers, editors, and historians. Background Funded under the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935, the FWP was established July 27, 1935, by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Henry Alsberg, a journalist, playwright, theatrical producer, and human-rights activist, directed the program from 1935 to 1939. In 1939, Alsberg was fired, federal funding was cut, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Reed Club
The John Reed Clubs (1929–1935), often referred to as John Reed Club (JRC), were an American federation of local organizations targeted towards Marxist writers, artists, and intellectuals, named after the American journalist and activist John Reed. Established in the fall of 1929, the John Reed Clubs were a mass organization of the Communist Party USA which sought to expand its influence among radical and liberal intellectuals. The organization was terminated in 1935. History 1929 In October 1929, the John Reed Club was founded by eight staff members of the ''New Masses'' magazine to support leftist and Marxist artists and writers. They included: Mike Gold, Walt Carmon, William Gropper, Keene Wallis, Hugo Gellert, Morris Pass, and Joseph Pass. According to Alan M. Wald, The John Reed Clubs were not founded by the Communist Party. ''New Masses'' managing editor Walt Carmon became frustrated with a group of young writers who were hanging out in the office and getting in his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Wright (author)
Richard Nathaniel Wright (September 4, 1908 – November 28, 1960) was an American author of novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially related to the plight of African Americans during the late 19th to mid-20th centuries suffering discrimination and violence. Literary critics believe his work helped change race relations in the United States in the mid-20th century. It was revealed in 2022 when documents on the JFK assassination were released, that Wright was killed by the CIA after “finishing a manuscript on use of American blacks by the government.” Early life and education Childhood in the South Richard Wright's memoir, ''Black Boy,'' covers the interval in his life from 1912 until May 1936. Richard Nathaniel Wright was born on September 4, 1908 at Rucker's Plantation, between the train town of Roxie and the larger river city of Natchez, Mississippi. He was the son of Nathan Wright (c. 1880–c. 1940) w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Native Son
''Native Son'' (1940) is a novel written by the American author Richard Wright. It tells the story of 20-year-old Bigger Thomas, a black youth living in utter poverty in a poor area on Chicago's South Side in the 1930s. While not apologizing for Bigger's crimes, Wright portrays a systemic causation behind them. Bigger's lawyer, Boris Max, makes the case that there is no escape from this destiny for his client or any other black American since they are the necessary product of the society that formed them and told them since birth who exactly they were supposed to be. "No American Negro exists", James Baldwin once wrote, "who does not have his private Bigger Thomas living in his skull." Frantz Fanon discusses the feeling in his 1952 essay ''L'expérience vécue du noir'' (''The Fact of Blackness''). "In the end", writes Fanon, "Bigger Thomas acts. To put an end to his tension, he acts, he responds to the world's anticipation." The book was a successful and groundbreaking best ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kuusankoski
Kuusankoski is a neighbourhood of city of Kouvola, former industrial town and municipality of Finland, located in the region of Kymenlaakso in the province of Southern Finland. The population of Kuusankoski was 20,392 (2003) and the total area was 129.5 km² of which 114 km² was land and 14.56 km² water. It is located some northeast of the Finnish capital Helsinki. Kuusankoski is primarily known for paper manufacturing and three large factory complexes. It is sometimes nicknamed the "Paper capital of Finland". History Kuusankoski (as a municipality, not the settlement), was founded in 1921 from the parts of neighbouring Iitti and Valkeala. It gained the status of ''kauppala'' (literally ''"a place of commerce"'') in 1957 and became a town in 1973. The history of Kuusankoski during the last one and a half centuries has been closely linked to the establishment of the paper factories and their development. The establishment of the factories dates back to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Walk On The Wild Side (novel)
''A Walk on the Wild Side'' is a 1956 novel by Nelson Algren, also adapted into Walk on the Wild Side (film), the 1962 film of the same name. Set in Great Depression, Depression era, it is "the tragi-comedy of Dove Linkhorn", a naive Texas, Texan drifting from his hometown to New Orleans. Algren noted, "The book asks why lost people sometimes develop into greater human beings than those who have never been lost in their whole lives. Why men who have suffered at the hands of other men are the natural believers in humanity, while those whose part has been simply to acquire, to take all and give nothing, are the most contemptuous of mankind." It is most often quoted for Algren's "three rules of life": "Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own." Plot summary Chapter 1 Fitz Linkhorn barely managed to make a living pumping out cesspools, but his consuming vocation was "Born Again" preachi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Century Of Progress
A Century of Progress International Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair, was a world's fair held in the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States, from 1933 to 1934. The fair, registered under the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), celebrated the city's centennial. The theme of the fair was technological innovation, and its motto was "Science Finds, Industry Applies, Man Adapts", trumpeting the message that science and American life were wedded. Its architectural symbol was the Sky Ride, a transporter bridge perpendicular to the shore on which one could ride from one side of the fair to the other. One description of the fair noted that the world, "then still mired in the malaise of the Great Depression, could glimpse a happier not-too-distant future, all driven by innovation in science and technology." Fair visitors saw the latest wonders in rail travel, automobiles, architecture and even cigarette-smoking robots. The exposition "emphasized technology an ... [...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] |
New Orleans
New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nueva Orleans) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 according to the 2020 U.S. census, it is the List of municipalities in Louisiana, most populous city in Louisiana and the twelfth-most populous city in the southeastern United States. Serving as a List of ports in the United States, major port, New Orleans is considered an economic and commercial hub for the broader Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast region of the United States. New Orleans is world-renowned for its Music of New Orleans, distinctive music, Louisiana Creole cuisine, Creole cuisine, New Orleans English, uniq ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
