As I finish my book about writers and the Great Depression, I am building an archive of free eBooks, Spotify playlists, photographs, videos, and poems from this dark and inspiring time.
“Like Delmore Schwartz’s generation, contemporary writers dream of escaping our “fate” shaped by the Great Recession of the early Aughts, but these epochal forces will follow us for the rest of our lives.”
Podcasts I’m Listening To, April 2016: Sad Men, Our Unwritten Books, Home of the Brave, Barnum Effect, Nocturne, Audio Dime Museum
Continuing to roll the dial and seek out new shows. So many good podcasts being produced and published. Here are my recommendations for the month of April.
Sad Men — Jason Boog produces this excellent show that looks back at depression era writers and tells their stories. His inspiration for the show comes from his own understanding of the struggles writers face when the tough times hit. Boog does a great job of capturing that earlier era and the work of these writers, and the show’s overarching theme of the struggle to both create great work and make a living is as poignant today as it was back during the tough times of the Great Depression.
Sad Men Podcast | iTunes
Our Unwritten Books — This show explores why that book doesn’t get written. It’s a project produced by Katie Shepherd and Bridget Hickey that came out of the conversations they were having with each other, at first, and then as they talked about it more, with others. Great to listen along as they go deep and explore this issue.
Our Unwritten Books | iTunes
(I had the opportunity to interview Katie Shepherd about Our Unwritten Books for the Writing Drafts podcast).
Home of the Brave — Scott Carrier is a well-known radio producer, and most people know him from his work on This American Life. Now he’s got his own show, where he pretty much does what he wants. And I’m so glad he’s got that freedom, because he’s going to some amazing faraway places and telling some incredible stories — not the tales of the famous, just the people he meets in the places that he visits while he’s looking for stories to hear, ask about, and share. One that really struck me and gave me pause was one of the earlier episodes: “A Walk on the Beach.”
HomeBrave.com | iTunes
Barnum Effect — Can’t recall how I stumbled upon this show, but I’m really glad I did. It’s a skit show — clever and full of energy and laughs. I never quite know what to expect, and that’s why I like it so much. Excellent production, and a crew that knows how to work together. Most importantly, it sounds like their having a great time, which makes the laughter I get out of it as a listener even better.
BarumEffect.com | iTunes
Nocturne — Surely I’ve mentioned this show before! It’s a longtime favorite, one of my earlier podcast discoveries. It’s all about the night, and the show’s creator, Vanessa Lowe, continues to find new and engaging ways to duck into the shadows and shine a light on the hidden, unseen places of the deep, dark hours after everyone else has gone to sleep . Amazing sounds, stories and insights. Fine to listen to during the day, because the show is good enough to set the right tone, even if it’s bright and sunny day.
Nocturne Podcast | iTunes
(I had the opportunity to interview Vanessa Lowe about Nocturne for theWriting Drafts podcast).
Audio Dime Museum — Such an intriguing show! I don’t want to say anything about it — let The Curator be your guide. Download an episode, hit play, and go along for the storytelling tour based on a particular curious object. Hat tip to Between Two Earbuds | @TwoEarbuds for letting me know about this great new show.
Audio Dime Museum | iTunes
Let me know about any and all shows I should be checking out @jeffyamaguchi.
— Jeffrey Yamaguchi
See also: March 2016 Podcast Recommendations.
Drawing above by Ros Webb. That’s Katie Shepherd of Our Unwritten Books and me in a podcast booth.
Newspaper moguls and the birth of a media labor movement
“In the darkest days of the Great Depression, Heywood Broun, a sportswriter more famous for his gambling exploits during the Roaring Twenties and for sneaking shots of gin during meetings than his reportage, haphazardly transformed journalism with a newspaper column.”
My new audio project, telling the stories of how a generation of men and women writers survived the Great Depression. Our first episode explores the bloody legacy of the great horror radio writer, Arch Oboler.
“These radical writers of the thirties — brave, crazy, and turbulent souls — have been mostly exiled from our literary canon. We need their stories now more than ever.”
Years before blogs, digital self-publishing or even 'zines, the great horror author H.P. Lovecraft helped lead the United Amateur Press Association for many years (including the Great Depression).
The association published The United Amateur, a collection of writings by members. Lovecraft also wrote a long column for magazine, analyzing different essays, poems and stories written by members--aggregating in the same spirit as contemporary literary bloggers.
You can download a free copy of Lovecraft's Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 over at Project Gutenberg. Below, I've reprinted a copy of an essay Lovecraft wrote for the magazine, sharing writing advice for members. After nearly a century, his advice still holds up.
Literary Composition by H. P. Lovecraft
Published in The United Amateur (January 1920)
In a former article our readers have been shewn the fundamental sources of literary inspiration, and the leading prerequisites to expression. It remains to furnish hints concerning expression itself; its forms, customs, and technicalities, in order that the young writer may lose nothing of force or charm in presenting his ideas to the public.
Grammar
A review of the elements of English grammar would be foreign to the purpose of this department. The subject is one taught in all common schools, and may be presumed to be understood by every aspirant to authorship. It is necessary, however, to caution the beginner to keep a reliable grammar and dictionary always beside him, that he may avoid in his compositions the frequent errors which imperceptibly corrupt even the purest ordinary speech. As a general rule, it is well to give close critical scrutiny to all colloquial phrases and expressions of doubtful parsing, as well as to all words and usages which have a strained or unfamiliar sound. The human memory is not to be trusted too far, and most minds harbour a considerable number of slight linguistic faults and inelegancies picked up from random discourse or from the pages of newspapers, magazines, and popular modern books.
Types of Mistakes
Most of the mistakes of young authors, aside from those gross violations of syntax which ordinary education corrects, may perhaps be enumerated as follows.
(1) Erroneous plurals of nouns, as vallies or echos.
(2) Barbarous compound nouns, as viewpoint or upkeep.
(3) Want of correspondence in number between noun and verb where the two are widely separated or the construction involved.
(4) Ambiguous use of pronouns.
(5) Erroneous case of pronouns, as whom for who, and vice versa, or phrases like "between you and I," or "Let we who are loyal, act promptly."
(6) Erroneous use of shall and will, and of other auxiliary verbs.
(7) Use of intransitive for transitive verbs, as "he was graduated from college," or vice versa, as "he ingratiated with the tyrant."
(8) Use of nouns for verbs, as "he motored to Boston," or "he voiced a protest."
(9) Errors in moods and tenses of verbs, as "If I was he, I should do otherwise," or "He said the earth was round."
(10) The split infinitive, as "to calmly glide."
(11) The erroneous perfect infinitive, as "Last week I expected to have met you."
(12) False verb-forms, as "I pled with him."
(13) Use of like for as, as "I strive to write like Pope wrote."
(14) Misuse of prepositions, as "The gift was bestowed to an unworthy object," or "The gold was divided between the five men."
(15) The superfluous conjunction, as "I wish for you to do this."
(16) Use of words in wrong senses, as "The book greatly intrigued me," "Leave me take this," "He was obsessed with the idea," or "He is a meticulous writer."
(17) Erroneous use of non-Anglicised foreign forms, as "a strange phenomena," or "two stratas of clouds."
(18) Use of false or unauthorized words, as burglarize or supremest.
(19) Errors of taste, including vulgarisms, pompousness, repetition, vagueness, ambiguousness, colloquialism, bathos, bombast, pleonasm, tautology, harshness, mixed metaphor, and every sort of rhetorical awkwardness.
(20) Errors of spelling and punctuation, and confusion of forms such as that which leads many to place an apostrophe in the possessive pronoun its.
Of all blunders, there is hardly one which might not be avoided through diligent study of simple textbooks on grammar and rhetoric, intelligent perusal of the best authors, and care and forethought in composition. Almost no excuse exists for their persistent occurrence, since the sources of correction are so numerous and so available. Many of the popular manuals of good English are extremely useful, especially to persons whose reading is not as yet extensive; but such works sometimes err in being too pedantically precise and formal. For correct writing, the cultivation of patience and mental accuracy is essential. Throughout the young author's period of apprenticeship, he must keep reliable dictionaries and textbooks at his elbow; eschewing as far as possible that hasty extemporaneous manner of writing which is the privilege of more advanced students. He must take no popular usage for granted, nor must he ever hesitate, in case of doubt, to fall back on the authority of his books.
Reading
No aspiring author should content himself with a mere acquisition of technical rules. As Mrs. Renshaw remarked in the preceding article, "Impression should ever precede and be stronger than expression." All attempts at gaining literary polish must begin with judicious reading, and the learner must never cease to hold this phase uppermost. In many cases, the usage of good authors will be found a more effective guide than any amount of precept. A page of Addison or of Irving will teach more of style than a whole manual of rules, whilst a story of Poe's will impress upon the mind a more vivid notion of powerful and correct description and narration than will ten dry chapters of a bulky textbook. Let every student read unceasingly the best writers, guided by the admirable Reading Table which has adorned the UNITED AMATEUR during the past two years.
It is also important that cheaper types of reading, if hitherto followed, be dropped. Popular magazines inculcate a careless and deplorable style which is hard to unlearn, and which impedes the acquisition of a purer style. If such things must be read, let them be skimmed over as lightly as possible. An excellent habit to cultivate is the analytical study of the King James Bible. For simple yet rich and forceful English, this masterly production is hard to equal; and even though its Saxon vocabulary and poetic rhythm be unsuited to general composition, it is an invaluable model for writers on quaint or imaginative themes. Lord Dunsany, perhaps the greatest living prose artist, derived nearly all of his stylistic tendencies from the Scriptures; and the contemporary critic Boyd points out very acutely the loss sustained by most Catholic Irish writers through their unfamiliarity with the historic volume and its traditions.
Vocabulary
One superlatively important effect of wide reading is the enlargement of vocabulary which always accompanies it. The average student is gravely impeded by the narrow range of words from which he must choose, and he soon discovers that in long compositions he cannot avoid monotony. In reading, the novice should note the varied mode of expression practiced by good authors, and should keep in his mind for future use the many appropriate synonymes he encounters. Never should an unfamiliar word be passed over without elucidation; for with a little conscientious research we may each day add to our conquests in the realm of philology, and become more and more ready for graceful independent expression.
But in enlarging the vocabulary, we must beware lest we misuse our new possessions. We must remember that there are fine distinctions betwixt apparently similar words, and that language must ever be selected with intelligent care. As the learned Dr. Blair points out in his Lectures, "Hardly in any language are there two words that convey precisely the same idea; a person thoroughly conversant in the propriety of language will always be able to observe something that distinguishes them."
Elemental Phases
Before considering the various formal classes of composition, it is well to note certain elements common to them all. Upon analysis, every piece of writing will be found to contain one or more of the following basic principles: Description, or an account of the appearance of things; Narration, or an account of the actions of things; Exposition, which defines and explains with precision and lucidity; Argument, which discovers truth and rejects error; and Persuasion, which urges to certain thoughts or acts. The first two are the bases of fiction; the third didactic, scientific, historical and editorial writings. The fourth and fifth are mostly employed in conjunction with the third, in scientific, philosophical, and partisan literature. All these principles, however, are usually mingled with one another. The work of fiction may have its scientific, historical, or argumentative side; whilst the textbook or treatise may be embellished with descriptions and anecdotes.
Description
Description, in order to be effective, calls upon two mental qualities; observation and discrimination. Many descriptions depend for their vividness upon the accurate reproduction of details; others upon the judicious selection of salient, typical, or significant points.[121]
One cannot be too careful in the selection of adjectives for descriptions. Words or compounds which describe precisely, and which convey exactly the right suggestions to the mind of the reader, are essential. As an example, let us consider the following list of epithets applicable to a fountain, taken from Richard Green Parker's admirable work on composition.
For the purpose of securing epithets at once accurate and felicitous, the young author should familiarize himself thoroughly with the general aspect and phenomena of Nature, as well as with the ideas and associations which these things produce in the human mind.
Descriptions may be of objects, of places, of animals, and of persons. The complete description of an object may be said to consist of the following elements:
1. When, where, and how seen; when made or found; how affected by time.
2. History and traditional associations.
3. Substance and manner of origin.
4. Size, shape, and appearance.
5. Analogies with similar objects.
6. Sensations produced by contemplating it.
7. Its purpose or function.
8. Its effects—the results of its existence.
Descriptions of places must of course vary with the type of the place. Of natural scenery, the following elements are notable:
1. How beheld—at dawn, noon, evening, or night; by starlight or moonlight.
2. Natural features—flat or hilly; barren or thickly grown; kind of vegetation; trees, mountains, and rivers.
3. Works of man—cultivation, edifices, bridges; modifications of scenery produced by man.
4. Inhabitants and other forms of animal life.
5. Local customs and traditions.
6. Sounds—of water; forest; leaves; birds; barnyards; human beings; machinery.
7. View—prospect on every side, and the place itself as seen from afar.
8. Analogies to other scenes, especially famous scenes.
9. History and associations.
10. Sensations produced by contemplating it.
Descriptions of animals may be analyzed thus:
1. Species and size.
2. Covering.
3. Parts.
4. Abode.
5. Characteristics and habits.
6. Food.
7. Utility or harmfulness.
8. History and associations.
Descriptions of persons can be infinitely varied. Sometimes a single felicitous touch brings out the whole type and character, as when the modern author Leonard Merrick hints at shabby gentility by mentioning the combination of a frock coat with the trousers of a tweed suit. Suggestion is very powerful in this field, especially when mental qualities are to be delineated. Treatment should vary with the author's object; whether to portray a mere personified idea, or to give a quasi photographic view, mental and physical, of some vividly living character. In a general description, the following elements may be found:
7. Character—moral and intellectual—place in the community.
8. Notable special qualities.
In considering the preceding synopses, the reader must remember that they are only suggestions, and not for literal use. The extent of any description is to be determined by its place in the composition; by taste and fitness. It should be added, that in fiction description must not be carried to excess. A plethora of it leads to dulness, so that it must ever be balanced by a brisk flow of Narration, which we are about to consider.
Narration
Narration is an account of action, or of successive events, either real or imagined; and is therefore the basis both of[122] history and of fiction. To be felicitous and successful, it demands an intelligent exercise of taste and discrimination; salient points must be selected, and the order of time and of circumstances must be well maintained. It is deemed wisest in most cases to give narratives a climactic form; leading from lesser to greater events, and culminating in that chief incident upon which the story is primarily founded, or which makes the other parts important through its own importance. This principle, of course, cannot be literally followed in all historical and biographical narratives.
Fictional Narration
The essential point of fictional narration is plot, which may be defined as a sequence of incidents designed to awaken the reader's interest and curiosity as to the result. Plots may be simple or complex; but suspense, and climactic progress from one incident to another, are essential. Every incident in a fictional work should have some bearing on the climax or denouement, and any denouement which is not the inevitable result of the preceding incidents is awkward and unliterary. No formal course in fiction-writing can equal a close and observant perusal of the stories of Edgar Allan Poe or Ambrose Bierce. In these masterpieces one may find that unbroken sequence and linkage of incident and result which mark the ideal tale. Observe how, in "The Fall of the House of Usher," each separate event foreshadows and leads up to the tremendous catastrophe and its hideous suggestion. Poe was an absolute master of the mechanics of his craft. Observe also how Bierce can attain the most stirring denouements from a few simple happenings; denouements which develop purely from these preceding circumstances.
In fictional narration, verisimilitude is absolutely essential. A story must be consistent and must contain no event glaringly removed from the usual order of things, unless that event is the main incident, and is approached with the most careful preparation. In real life, odd and erratic things do occasionally happen; but they are out of place in an ordinary story, since fiction is a sort of idealization of the average. Development should be as lifelike as possible, and a weak, trickling conclusion should be assiduously avoided. The end of a story must be stronger rather than weaker than the beginning; since it is the end which contains the denouement or culmination, and which will leave the strongest impression upon the reader. It would not be amiss for the novice to write the last paragraph of his story first, once a synopsis of the plot has been carefully prepared—as it always should be. In this way he will be able to concentrate his freshest mental vigour upon the most important part of his narrative; and if any changes be later found needful, they can easily be made. In no part of a narrative should a grand or emphatic thought or passage be followed by one of tame or prosaic quality. This is anticlimax, and exposes a writer to much ridicule. Notice the absurd effect of the following couplet—which was, however, written by no less a person than Waller:
"Under the tropic is our language spoke, And part of Flanders hath receiv'd our yoke."
Unity, Mass, Coherence
In developing a theme, whether descriptive or narrative, it is necessary that three structural qualities be present: Unity, Mass, and Coherence. Unity is that principle whereby every part of a composition must have some bearing on the central theme. It is the principle which excludes all extraneous matter, and demands that all threads converge toward the climax. Classical violations of Unity may be found in the episodes of Homer and other epic poets of antiquity, as well as in the digressions of Fielding and other celebrated novelists; but no beginner should venture to emulate such liberties. Unity is the quality we have lately noted and praised in Poe and Bierce.
Mass is that principle which requires the more important parts of a composition to occupy correspondingly important places in the whole composition, the paragraph, and the sentence. It is that law of taste which insists that emphasis be placed where emphasis is due, and is most strikingly embodied in the previously mentioned necessity for an emphatic ending. According to this law, the end of a composition is its most important part, with the beginning next in importance.
Coherence is that principle which groups related parts together and keeps unrelated parts removed from one another. It applies, like Mass, to the whole composition,[123] the paragraph, or the sentence. It demands that kindred events be narrated without interruption, effect following cause in a steady flow.
Forms of Composition
Few writers succeed equally in all the various branches of literature. Each type of thought has its own particular form of expression, based on natural appropriateness; and the average author tends to settle into that form which best fits his particular personality. Many, however, follow more than one form; and some writers change from one form to another as advancing years produce alterations in their mental processes or points of view.
It is well, in the interests of breadth and discipline, for the beginner to exercise himself to some degree in every form of literary art. He may thus discover that which best fits his mind, and develop hitherto unsuspected potentialities.
How New York City Writers Survived the Great Depression
Welcome to Sad Men, the official blog for my upcoming book about how New York City writers survived the Great Depression.
I am finishing a hardboiled history book about how ten different writers coped with economic catastrophe in the 1930s. The writers include: Edward Newhouse, Maxwell Bodenheim, May Swenson and Richard Wright.
On this site, I am building an archive of free eBooks, Spotify playlists, photographs, videos, and poems from the literary world of the Great Depression.
Hi Jason. I'm working on a music video to play during my band's set, and I would like it to all be Depression-Era footage. My storyline idea is this: a boy who gets bullied growing up in a middle class/mediocre environment, the depression hitting, and the boy/man's future success (assuming a character like Ford or somewhat less successful). Let me know if you have any pointers on where I should get started! Thanks so much.
You should check the Prelinger Archive, they have a great collection of Depression-era videos…
Kayne West sampled Nina Simone singing "Strange Fruit" in his most recent album, reviving one of the most powerful protest songs ever written in a song called "Blood on the Leaves."
New York City English teacher, poet and activist Abel Meeropol wrote the poem "Strange Fruit" during the Great Depression. The great Billie Holiday ended up recording the song, sharing the dark story about lynchings in America. NPR has more about this remarkable song:
In the late 1930s, Pellison says, Meeropol "was very disturbed at the continuation of racism in America, and seeing a photograph of a lynching sort of put him over the edge." Meeropol once said the photograph "haunted" him "for days." So he wrote a poem about it, which was then printed in a teachers union publication. An amateur composer, Meeropol also set his words to music. He played it for a New York club owner — who ultimately gave it to Billie Holiday. When Holiday decided to sing "Strange Fruit," the song reached millions of people.
Amazon employees in Germany have mounted a strike against the online retailer. Today is a good day to remember other strikes in publishing history...
In 1934, Dashiell Hammett, Edward Newhouse and nine other authors joined brave employees on the picket line outside Macaulay Company publishing house--reportedly, the first publishing house strike in America.
My upcoming book will follow the saga of this strike, but I wanted to share the list of demands that the strikers offered in 1934. It serves as a reminder of how far we've come in workers' rights over the 20th Century and what we need to protect in the future.
The Macaulay Strike Demands
1. All abuse and tyranny on the part of the employers must stop.
2. Employees must be permitted the use of sufficient electric light.
3. The installation of electric fans in warm weather.
4. Employees absent because of illness for a period up to ten days should receive full pay.
5. No discharge without either two weeks’ notice or one week’s salary.
6. Workers employed by the company for a year or longer should receive two week’s vacation.
Newspaper reporters staged a historic strike during this same period. Here's more about that collective action:
While researching my book, I discovered Edward Newhouse’s bombastic coverage The Newark Ledger newspaper strike. The action began in November 1934 when 45 reporters and editors walked out of the office. The union hired a professional sound truck, a van cruising up and down the streets of Newark, blasting the reporters’ demands.
The Federal Government has stepped in to save banks, and the automobile industry, but where are they on the important subject of books? Or, if the answer is state and local government, where are they? Is any state doing anything? Why are there no impassioned editorials in influential newspapers or magazines? Who will save our books? Our libraries? Our bookstores?
--James Patterson in a New York Times Book Review advertisement.
Above, a poster from Iowa : WPA Federal Art Project between 1936 and 1939.
I'm writing about nonfiction book query letters on GalleyCat, and I realized that it is very hard to find sample query letters online.
To help other writers, here is a copy of my query letter that eventually became this book project...
Sad Men will recreate the seven most miserable years ever faced by American writers. My dramatic history will begin during the long winter of 1933, following a crew of ruined literary luminaries, burnt-out pulp fiction scribes, and future Federal Writers Project employees. The book will conclude in 1939 as a controversial federal bailout sent writers back to work and the World's Fair revived the city. Readers will discover some uncanny similarities to our recession, but my book will ultimately remind us that our literary ancestors have been here before—and they survived.
Get ready for TROUBLED DAUGHTERS, TWISTED WIVES: Stories from the Trailblazers of Domestic Suspense, edited by Sarah Weinman, coming from Penguin Books on August 27.
This year marked the 72nd anniversary of the debut of Olivier Messiaen's “Quartet for the End of Time,” a gorgeous cycle of chamber music first performed in a German prison camp during World War Two.
I have been lost in "Abyss of the Birds," a mournful seven-minute clarinet solo that sounds like a songbird lost in the frozen darkness of a January night. The composer described his own piece: "Clarinet alone. The abyss is Time with its sadness, its weariness. The birds are the opposite to time, They are our desire for light, for stars, for rainbows, and for jubilant Songs."
The melody must leave the clarinet player dizzy from its long passages, stretching the loveliest notes for seemingly endless measures. In the best recordings you can hear the clarinetist gulping for air.
No matter where you live, the clarinet makes for great writing music, a sad and slow tune that emerged from the hell-hole of World War Two.
Alex Ross described this magnificent series at The New Yorker:
The title does not exaggerate the ambitions of the piece. An inscription in the score supplies a catastrophic image from the Book of Revelation: “In homage to the Angel of the Apocalypse, who lifts his hand toward heaven, saying, ‘There shall be time no longer.’” It is, however, the gentlest apocalypse imaginable ... [there] are episodes of transfixing serenity—in particular, two “Louanges,” or songs of praise. Each has a drawn-out string melody over pulsing piano chords; each builds toward a luminous climax and then vanishes into silence. The first is marked “infinitely slow”; the second, “tender, ecstatic.” Beyond that, words fail.
To celebrate the anniversary, I'm reading For the End of Time: The Story of the Messiaen Quartet. by Rebecca Rischin. She dispelled many myths about this monumental work, bringing to life a cast of amazing musicians making music in one of the most terrible places on earth.
Melville House has a terrific slideshow of WPA Posters about books and reading. (The Library of Congress has even more!) The art is inspiring enough; the sentiments behind it, even more so. A few of our favorites.
During the Great Depression, the young poet May Swenson traveled New York City for the Federal Writers Project, recording the "folklore" of city dwellers.
Swenson interviewed a series of department store workers, capturing the lifestyle and struggles of these employees. In the excerpt below, you can read department store poetry and memories of long department store strikes.
Her interviews now reside in the American Life Histories section at the Library of Congress. You can read Swenson's biography and poetry at this link.
"Lore of Department Store Workers"
Collected by May Swenson
A Shop Girl's Saga
By Betty Mindling (Of Norton's Department Store)
A salesgirl's life is not so hot,
Even in the better Department shop.
Deposited each morning from the subway crop,
To wade in the public auction lot.
With a smile, we stand aimed to please,
No matter how feet ache and pain;
Though selected clientele come to tease,
The show must go on--there are sales to gain.
Then there are those ladies of leisure, Who always dally, way after the closing bell;
To serve -- we assure them is really a pleasure;
Though we would as lief tell them to go to h---.
If in manner we rival the Hollywood glamour,
And put on the act to close a deal,
It's the unwritten law -- by popular clamour To season all sales with a dash of sex appeal.
The run on the stock is simply terrific,
To keep it appealing is quite a day's work;
Summed up, our calling must be prolific,
To total the degrees of Department Store Clerk.
Bonus Party
By Sue (Of the 5 & 10 on Fourteenth Street)
Sure they take us out on parties,
When we win our bonus monies;
But we guess they only do it
To make us think they're honeys.
We must work hard to win it,
But it should go in our pay;
And the cheapest way to buy us
Is the bonus party way.
Sure we'll work hard as we must work
But we know what to do;
And we will have our parties
And much better parties too.
So sign up with the union
For what we win is ours
And we wouldn't have to listen to
The bosses hearts and flowers.
All published in Hot Shots, a weekly for 5 & 10 store workers.
Irving Fajans has been employed in several of New York's chief Department Stores, including Macy's in New York, May's in Brooklyn, Ohrbachs, Hearns, and various Woolworth and Grand stores. He helped organize unions in all these stores, and has participated in many strikes and sit-downs. He remembers the famous March 1937 strike staged by Grand employees throughout New York City, which lasted for eleven days...
The leaders kept the hour of the strike secret until the last minute, so that news of it would not leak out to the management. The management had refused to negotiate with our committee, and the workers had voted for a sit-in as a demand for shorter working hours and better working conditions.
At 11:30 A.M. on March 14, the whistles were blown in every Grand store in New York, and the workers each finished their sales and folded their arms, refusing to wait on any more customers. Practically 100 percent of the workers joined us, and most of the stores almost immediately closed their doors. We were prepared to stay in for a month if necessary.
Arrangements had been made for food and bedding to be brought in, and the workers notified their families by phone that they would be away from home indefinitely. We had cots brought in and blankets, electric burners for coffee, and plenty of eats. Although there was food and other things we might have used in the store, none of our people touched any sort of merchandise during the strike. Two engagements were announced during the time we sat in, and we held parties. We even held a marriage ceremony there for a couple who decided to get married during the strike. The girls dressed up the bride, and the fellows groomed the groom, and we had a priest sent for, and married them.
It was pretty cold, being early spring, and the blankets we had were not enough so we had to huddle together at nights. Some of the fellows slept on the counters. There were some canary cages in the store, and we kept the birds fed....they'd trill and wake us up early every morning. We had names like checkers and cards, and we had a radio, and danced to the music.
The strike held out over Easter week, and it happened that some of our people were Italians and Irish Catholics, so since they couldn't attend services, we held Easter Services for them in the store.
Nobody left the store, except the committee to contact the management, for eleven days. The girls held out just as well as the fellows, and everyone tried to be gay and have as good a time as possible. Luckily, no one in our store got sick during strike. The management finally heard our committee and met our demands -- largely as a result of the publicity our sit-down had gotten all over the country......"
"Another strike that got a lot of publicity was the May Department Store strike in Brooklyn, there the girls got up on the elevator structure and shouted that the boss was unfair. On Lincoln's birthday, one of the boys dressed up as Abraham Lincoln was parading on the picket line. A policeman came up to him and said, 'I don't know who this Abe is, but anyhow you're under arrest!"
yousharknotpass
baratheonpilled
janainaart
romaincrisis
kaledo-art
vaporwave
