Articles from The New York Times
A remarkable book is this latest by Sinclair Lewis. A novel, yes, but so unusual as not to fall easily into a class. There is practically no plot, yet the book is absorbing. It is so much like life itself, so extraordinarily real. These people are actual folk, and there was never better dialogue written than their revealing talk.
Main Street by Sinclair Lewis (NY Times, 1920) Read More »
Here is the 1922 review of Ulysses by James Joyce as it appeared in the NEW YORK TIMES:
Before proceeding with a brief analysis of Ulysses and comment on its construction and its content, I wish to characterize it. Ulysses is the most important contribution that has been made to fictional literature in the Twentieth Century.
An interview with Joyce can be read here…
Ulysses by James Joyce (NY Times, 1922) Read More »
Two eyewitness accounts relaying the last moments in the life of millionaire investor John Jacob Astor IV (born and his gallantry in refusing a place in the lifeboats. According to Mrs. Churchill Candee (born Helen Churchill Hungerford, 1859 – 1949)and Second Class passenger Hilda Slater (1882 – 1965) he lived up to the expected standards of the day:
I saw Colonel John Jacob Astor hand his young wife into a boat tenderly and then ask an officer whether or not he might also go. When permission was refused he stepped back and coolly took out his cigarette case.
‘Good bye, dearie’ he called gaily, as he lighted his cigarette and leaned over the rail, ‘I’ll join you later.’
How John Jacob Astor Died (New York Times, 1912) Read More »
The attached obituary of Isador Straus (born 1845) as it appeared in THE NEW YORK TIMES the day after the news of his death was made known. At the time he had secured passage on board Titanic, Straus was co-owner of the Macy’s department store with his brother Nathan. A trusted advisor to U.S. President Grover Cleveland, he was elected to represent the New Yorkers of the fifty-third district and served in that post between 1894 and 1895. He died in the company of his wife Ida; unlike Straus, her body was never recovered.
Isador Straus (New York Times, 1912) Read More »
This is a small notice from THE NEW YORK TIMES reporting on the surprisingly impulsive behavior of the men of high civic standing on-board Titanic who were among the first to scramble for the lifeboats:
It was our Congressmen, our Senators, and our ‘big men’ who led in the crush for the lifeboats.
It was also pointed out that many of the Titanic heroes that night were also men of prominence within their communities, fellows such as Isador Straus and John Jacob Astor who refused to accept lifeboat seating.
Cowardly Behavior on TITANIC (New York Times, 1912) Read More »
One year prior to being elected as the 25th governor of Arkansas, Charles Hillman Brough (1876 – 1935), while serving as the chairman of the University Commission on the Southern Race Question, submitted his opinion regarding racial segregation in the Annual Report that he had written for that organization. Dr. Brough, who at the time was a professor of Economics and Sociology at the University of Arkansas, condemned the Jim Crow laws that had separated Whites from Blacks, believing that no good could ever spring from it:
In my humble opinion, it is better to admit the negro to all the stimulus and the inspiration of the white’s social heritage, so far as it applies to economic equality of opportunity given through industrial education, in so far as it does not endanger the integrity of the social heritage itself, than to encourage an ignorant and debased citizenship by his neglect and repression.
Brough Called Out for Racial Parity (New York Times, 1915) Read More »
– two books from Amazon:
The Lincoln Memorial (NY Times, 1923) Read More »
An anonymous reviewer tells his readers about the mournful spirit that dominated each room at the Matthew Brady Gallery where he attended a unique exhibit of the photographer’s Civil War pictures:
At the door of his gallery hangs a little placard ‘The Dead of Antietam’. Crowds of people are constantly going up the stairs; follow them…there is a terrible fascination about it that draws one near these pictures, and makes you loath to leave them. You will see hushed, reverend groups standing around these weird copies of carnage, bending down to look in the pale faces of the dead, chained by the strange spell that dwells in dead men’s eyes.
It was on the first day at Gettysburg that the Confederates made a terrible mistake. Read about it here.
Mathew Brady at Antietam (NY Times, 1862) Read More »
A short column from the front page of The New York Times dated May 6, 1915 in which one of the Lusitania survivors recalled that famous submarine attack and it’s immediate aftermath:
…Immediately we both saw the track of a torpedo followed almost instantly by an explosion. Portions of splintered hull were sent flying into the air, and then another torpedo struck. The ship began to list to starboard.
In 2008 Mr. Gregg Bemis, the American who is the owner of Lusitania, and sole possessor of all salvaging rights, examined the remains of the great ship where it rested some eight miles off Ireland’s South-West coast and provided proof-positive that the ship was indeed hauling armaments.
– from Amazon:
Lusitania Torpedoed (NY Times, 1915) Read More »
Here is a World War I article that appeared on the pages of The New York Times some four months after the American entry into the war and it reported that the U.S. Government was obligated to close all news and opinion organs that questioned any efforts to prosecute the war or support the allied nations. The Times reported that the government was granted this power under Title 1, section 1, 2, and 3 of Title 12 of the Espionage Act (signed by President Wilson on June 13, 1917). Although no publications were named, the reader will be able to recognize that the only ones slandered as pro-German were those that would appeal to the pro-labor readers.
To learn how many African-Americans served in the W.W. I American Army, click here.
Controlling the Radical Presses (NY Times, 1917) Read More »
