Collector's Item: 1900-08 Old Shoes and New Ideas

oh I don't know it's been doing that ever since those heavy trucks started rolling well what did you do with it oh come over there no according to the actor keeping things straight around here is a woman's work but I keep telling her that this collection is my work and it should be I've been at it ever since I started to teach in college and each of these objects is being here have a story that is a part of American life and I kind of like to tell you about them and my reason for collecting even of American life or of American time now these two things American life and American art are part of each other their information my theory at the art place believe me flex what's happening in life and if you'll join me for a while I'll tell you about now is it stock what I mean by me taking care of things here I want things where I can find them now where did that pair of shoes go that I wanted to Oh whoever wore these must have been a fortune most of the time but with the dirt road in the cobblestone streets they had to walk on in the early 1900 doing the whole week buying one day well basically I guess you think that women shop Ford hasn't changed and so on but it's 45 cent ham and eggs and it's 5 cent he even though ladies were invited why they were even thinking of inviting lady to vote I feel you imagine how the man was hit last but he was her family he can good the longer he's taking this everybody throws into the ice and David can and our shopper captain's is taking home a bag of the old standbys about all the fresh food is available transportation just wasn't fast enough to get fresh food to their destination in time see there were still more horse Baggins and trucks on the cobblestone street yes these shoes were worn by a woman shopping for her many other women those days they were talking emancipation the whole country was talking the confident progress they wanted work why don't you vote above all they want to be form here take a look at these gals the suffragettes and the cannery worker and through it all chopping her way into the hearts and the barrels of many Americans carry nation crusader for prohibition yes women will be coming apart to the booming roaring industrial age of America in the early 1900 it's a country of contrasts the America of the industrial tycoons who averaged over the years ten million dollars a year no income cap and the America of the immigrant laborers to average about four hundred dollars a year no income tax what it came down to was just this that the Carnegie's and the Rockefellers were making just about twenty thousand times how much a year as the average worker but everyone rich or poor had unbounded faith in America's future yes we had a lot of faith a lot of visions too darling Kitty Hawk North Carolina the Wright brothers were tinkering with a new gadget they called the airplane a parked car didn't need the hitching post entire food but it took a long time and a lot of stars completely rule out the hitching post era cars which are now just museum pieces the car age was being given a big push by Henry Ford's announcement in 1908 that he was going in for mass production one model only the Model T yes by then the ahoo was fast replacing the horse as well as bringing country and city folks closer together and the same country folk were helping to bring old Dobbins influence to an end the tractor was a lot faster than a horse just imagine what America was like their business was pronounced business when huge corporations joined together to wield unheard-of power and force out competition with no apparent end to it all as long as the White House policy seemed to be to let big business go well the little fellow small business began to demand that government take a hand in the thing long box yes 1901 President McKinley was assassinated Rough Rider Teddy Roosevelt took over and under him slowly government did begin to take action I remember my theory about the arts reflecting the time well I have some friends who tell me that's what we call the art no music sudama's journalism and all assets don't have much to do with our everyday life have a look and see now one of the reasons why this whole demand for reform in economic and social evil stocks education was due to the newspapers something that was both an art and a physical example of this same Industrial Age journalism was hitting up a roaring in this period changing from a clue to a three-man operation between industrial giants New York newspaper of publishers Hearst and cuticle or fighting for reading well along with the lonely hearts column the sensational yellow journalism of the day they wanted reform and thank God we newspaper expose zuv corruption in big insurance companies and railroad writers with their cries for reform and change and industries turned a magazine to a lot of these magazines all right cool yeah have it right here later published in the book the history of the Standard Oil Company written by Ida M Carville very innocent looking woman well you'd never think that a whole country on it to hear like she did in 1903 why there was even a Broadway play about her the lion and the mouse ran for two years unheard of thing in those days yes America was big for some unsentimental factual reporting of just what was going on in industry now what about the rest of our writers novelist the same thing is happening there American literature will banish Harold Bell Wright was writing bestsellers which was mostly romantic sentimentality and things like that when mated with a flower and the works and Sir Walter struck were very popular that was the biggest part I'll admit but still just a spot for you also had men like Upton Sinclair right north Hammond Garland Theodore Dreiser's men who were ardently protesting about existing conditions why if ever a book want people up to one part of our life it was the jungle here let me show Oster did you take it my book by Upton Sinclair the jungle oh I just wanted it for a moment but I wanted that book really ripped the lid off of bad decisions among the meat packers and they did it from the workers standpoint which was something new for 1906 well I never goods worker in Chicago wouldn't have agreed with you on that and don't forget that as soon as that book was published a government inquiry into conditions in the meat packing industry got underway made it happen there were some exciting writers in those days and this may surprise one of the most exciting with the philosopher William James well I'll tell you what was exciting about this one instead of just traveling about precepts and concepts and things that people don't understand much anyway he was applying our Industrial Revolution well as far as you're concerned here let's just say it this way that's there the principles of a philosophy are only as good as their practical application that's why you like Henry and he was remember Carl is a wild no I don't believe it came out through about 1900 by the way what became of that Merry Widow hat that I acquired the other day do you remember well nevermind I don't think you find it for adorable doing dishes I think they were texted to play remember what I was telling you about the emancipation of women yeah Laura Thoren girl why we're looking at let's look at some other we have here there's even penguin I don't care girl Lillian Russell and Marie Dressler we started there and Enrico Caruso was here from Italy captivating opera lovers David Belasco probably the top stage director that Isadora Duncan breaking all dance traditions with the natural barefoot style then rue saint-denis with her strong belief in the religious values of the dance gave her wonderful contributions to modern American dance oh there are so many others in so many plays actually drama during this period was really more interested in providing at a team than in reflecting the demand for economic and social changes but King Pan Alley the popular musical world was really commenting all the time and remember this was an era of immigration so we had that ate a double RI Ga NFL character sci fi forgotten tune and then there was she's only a burden a gilded cage it was trying to show that love could bridge the gap between wealth and poverty over your head quite a gap there and John Philip Sousa and his band were touring Europe and European musicians were touring America then of course there was the ever-present songs of love and romance well I could go on and on forever about the fumes that reflected the time but I have a choice item to show you an old movie film they were joining this movement even where you been asking about 1904 remember those Nickelodeon's we're giving the water bill of the day such a rough time you know at first there was a separate pictures of action and reporting yet but then along in 1903 became Edwin s Porter with the Great Train Robbery now he was the first director to really tell a story with his pictures but I'll just show you some of it it's on the projector here with some other film the back well was that as a very humble start movies were on their way toward developing into anarchic and it wouldn't be long till he began commenting on society meanwhile in New York City a man was proving that still photography could be an art to an Arctic could stand alone and not marry imitates Katy and this man was Alfred Steele I've got something of his here in my pen question I'd like to sure a long way back in 1907 he was looking down into the hold of a immigrant ship and he got this unpaused masterpiece the series and it was feiglin who helps spread modern trends in artists who worked he displayed in his New York City gallery now these modern trends were influencing some of the young artists at the time many of them were newspaper illustrators men who made a living drawing pictures which made the newspaper copy several of them formed in 1908 a group known as the eight their work was simply a revolt against a different opinion and it starts for painting American Life as they saw it through their jobs the pictorial reporting they call healthy average man and they've painted what they saw and felt oh it was something new all right you can imagine how a public used to pre power felt about hearing the term art applied to a couple of sweating prizefighters in the rain but George bellows painted what he saw and soon came to be accepted to the dream on this stage at sharpie George News maybe the flow the Steelers is the perfect example or the children dance laughs but it's the high-strung fleeting laughter of New York's blowing children and this is stormed high by Robert Henry listen to his word America must build her own heart to do this the artist the man of means and the man in the streets must go hand in hand so these men were really entirely changed but even so took the American public through the while to get used to them they'd set the stage for the new theme in American art the recognition of our own art instead of an imitation of others Americans were beginning to look to themselves in structure to there was a turn toward selecting American subjects and already a beginning of the new direction in structure more direct carving at less fancy ornamentation I hear some film I took when I was in Chicago recently which will show you exactly what I need Lincoln was regarded as the democratic ideal instructor many sculptors Joseph Petraeus sangdo-dong statue of him shows the dignified famous statesman made even more noble by his office of treasurer the rate of tax was the center of a circle of young Midwestern sculptors here isn't fountain of the Great Lakes it shows the pride which Americans cooking themselves and their resources each figure represents one of the Great Lakes with Lake Superior proudly growing over the others and pouring water from her urn into the nation just as the Great Lakes themselves flow into each other the rest of this film is on some architecture that I took on that she thought would fit 20th century America had a passion for industry for progress it worshiped the machine so what you'd follow naturally the skyscraper working in Chicago at this time was Louis Sullivan an architect who had emigrated from Ireland he came to be known as the father of the skyscraper let's look at one of his buildings this is the present carson pirie scott's core design from lesbian life from air to display good to advantage aesthetic and rather heavy ornamentation was used in a manner that party does its duty but didn't interfere with the function of the village and realized that the building should be styled according to each piece in no time at all our architects Ice Baby the Flatiron Building may look small to it now but it and the singer building were real shocker with twenty worried record and soon made New York rather than Chicago I wonder how many of you realized that Frank Lloyd Wright a name in architecture that almost everyone recognizes today twenties days as a student with Louis Sullivan alright could never accept Sullivan skyscrapers but he got from him his passion for designing buildings according to their use right considered his buildings of he blended it into the Empire his Unity Church in Oak Park Illinois it shocked people when he killed him but it's practical structure makes it still usable today he harmonized he started with material and he's burning he built this house shortly afterward try to imagine how this fit in with the junior-brother architecture of the day but here is always he was adapting the building from its natural setting well that was America 1909 okay there was evidence that changes needed to come about a balancing of the scales is called for and everywhere there was a demand for these changes is the American social conscience underwent a mass revolt the distance between wealth and poverty big business and labor city and country were among the most significant contrast of the era those highways Chuy's he saw had been able to walk the length of Manhattan in New York City they would have seen the contract up on Fifth Avenue they would walk past palatial mansion to the very rich who wanted to live like royalty and on another side of the city they would walk past the poor homes of the immigrants and laborers men who were almost penniless battling for a chance to make a living with the immigrant having the added burden of trying to exist in a strange and bewildering land it's hard for us today to realize that such violent contrast could have existed in America but existed they did and the artists of the times were writing about the contrast painting them composing music about them but above all revealing well thanks so much people and do calling again if we discuss America and Iran up to the first world war