Chapter 13: The Cultural Uplift
There were dark days in years gone by – days when cultural activities in the city depended entirely upon individual and group interest in the arts. Only the music lovers attended concerts and participated in the programs of the Mozart Club. Lecturers drew audiences composed simply of those who wished to hear what the lecturer had to say. And the several literary clubs which flourished quietly but steadily were made up almost exclusively of those who had some acquaintance with literature, and who wished to enrich their possessions in that field.
The great bulk of those participating in such affairs were well satisfied. But it did not suit the boosters. Culture, quire obviously, was insufficiently imbued with civic spirit. What was needed was more and bigger doings; it was time to apply the principles of mass selling toward the glorious end of advancing the cultural reputation of the city. Thus, some years ago, the renaissance got under way.
The process has been a very simple one. No longer are the prospective patrons appealed to through their actual interest in the arts. Instead, high-pressure selling methods bring them to a realization that the city must be kept well in the forefront of American municipalities esthetically as well as in the annual volume and value of such manufactured products as washing machines, ice cream cones, mattresses and water closets. It is a much simpler and more readily understood appeal – an idea in which the prospective esthetes can really set their teeth; one with which they already enjoy the familiarity of long association in other branches of community activity.
It is also said to be a highly successful appeal. It is claimed by the boosters, that as a result of their incessant and resounding efforts, no American city displays a keener interest in concerts, lectures, art exhibits, literary and music club work, and the like. Whatever the truth of this claim, the annual reports of the various leagues, associations and clubs establish conclusively the fact that thousands participate, however passively, in such activities. The grand total involved in the cultural boom approaches the impressive figure of five per cent of the city’s population.
II
It is in the field of music that the organized Uplift has made its greatest showing. Instead of the occasional concert of other days, there are now two complete courses offered each year: one by the Civic Music League and the other by the Symphony Association. In the operation of these two organizations is revealed a highly intelligent appreciation of the factors involved in the problem of mass and class culture.
The Civic Music League gives five concerts yearly, selling approximately two thousand season tickets at an average price of seven dollars. It is pointed out by League promoters that this is a choice bargain, since each concert is delivered to the customers at a flat price of one dollar and forty cents.
This emphasis upon the economic aspect of the Uplift results not only in a large sale of tickets, but also in uniformly well-filled houses, since the ticket holders, having invested their cash in advance, must attend each concert in order to take full advantage of their bargains.
The same economic factor assures bounteous applause. At a dollar forty, six program numbers with six encores cost about eleven and a half cents each. If, however, the artist can be induced to give two encores instead of one with each number, the cost is reduced to seven and a half cents, or a saving of about one-third. Applause is thus loud and long, achieving, after the first burst of presumed enthusiasm, a steady, monotonous and measured beating of palm upon palm which is designed to break down the strongest artist’s resistance. There is reason to believe that this practice occasionally arouses the ire of the artists themselves. But among the boosters it is generally regarded as conclusive evidence of the musical appreciation of the public.
Careful shopping about on the part of the League’s executives enables them to adorn the average season with at least one great artist. Considerably less distinguished performers, at considerably lower fees, fill out the other dates of the season, and thus the annual budget is balanced. When a deficit appears, a stern economy is employed in selecting artists for the ensuring season – a very happy solution of the difficulty, as the consequently lower artistic merit of the programs brings only a few scattered complaints from the subscribers.
Civic Music League concerts are held in Memorial Hall, a vast auditorium of peculiarly depressing aspect; and the innate democracy of theirs affairs is indicated by the fact that it is not considered good form to appear in evening dress.
But while the League is thus catering to the appetite of the masses, the classes are being regaled with the compositions of Brahms and Beethoven through the ministrations of the Symphony Association. The concerts, five each season, have been held until recently in the smaller but more lavishly appointed Victory Theatre. Qualifications for enjoying these more elevated cultural treats include the financial ability to pay about twice as much for a season ticket as is charged by the League, the possession of evening clothes, and the ability to be at ease while taking one’s culture in the comparatively rarefied social atmosphere implied by these considerations.
Each symphony season winds up with a deficit of about ten thousand dollars, since the best efforts of the Association’s promoters are unable to persuade more than six or eight hundred of the culture-loving public to sign up as subscribers. On account of this financial difficulty the powers of the Association stress the social aspect. Over half of the members of its directorate belong to the upper levels of the local peerage; and the balance is carefully selected to include representative leaders from the somewhat less exalted groups among the gentry. With the social complexion of the Association thus nicely balanced, it becomes relatively easy to persuade some fifty of the wealthier subscribers to pledge themselves as guarantors against the inevitable annual deficit.
Some of the subscribers have an appreciative knowledge of the symphonies themselves. A majority of them attend each concert, though certain leaders of community thought have been known to say, in making their subscriptions: “All right, I’ll subscribe if I don’t have to go to the concerts. Those who do attend enjoy themselves thoroughly. As one of the powers in the association remarked, “We try to make each concert a distinguished social event. That’s why we urge everyone to come in evening dress. You know, that always adds tone.”
Somewhat less successful than in the field of music have been the efforts of those who seek to advance community culture through the medium of lecture courses.
One such course, organized just after the war, dribbled out to complete failure after a session or so. Another one was launched three or four years ago by the city’s leading bookseller, who conducted it as a civic undertaking without expectation of profit. This gentleman had a happy inspiration when he placed his money for the opening lecture on that distinguished literary luminary, Mr. Richard Halliburton. Twenty five hundred eager customers jammed Memorial Hall, took on a capacity load of Romance, and fought their way forward at the evening to obtain the priceless memento of the Halliburton autograph. Thus the season avoided a deficit in spite the fact that subsequent lectures by such lesser lights as John Cowper Powys and John Langdon-Davies attracted only about two hundred patrons each.
Succeeding seasons have fared but ill, and each year there is bickering as to whether the lectures should be continued. Every effort is made, however, to assure economic and intellectual safety. At a meeting of cultural leaders, held to determine the feasibility of a course during the 1930-31 season, it was decided that all lecturers must be economical in the matter of fees, and, above all, safe, sane and orthodox in the matter of ideas. When, during this meeting, a gentleman suspected of liberal tendencies had the temerity to suggest the name of Harry Elmer Barnes, a high priestess of the Federation of Women’s Clubs announced that the club women would most assuredly consider it their sacred duty to protect the younger generation from the diabolic and incendiary heresies of which Doctor Barnes stood convicted and damned by his own published writings. The marked preference of most of those who sponsor the course seems to be for travel lectures depicting life in the worlds of foreign lands, coupled with the innocuous philosophical observations of such authorities as the eminent William Lyon Phelps and others.
For many years an effort was made to arouse booster interest in the Art Institute, which was passing through a most precarious infancy in the gloomy basement of Memorial Hall. It seemed an almost impossible task; apparently the graphic and plastic arts left the boosters entirely cold.
A few years ago, however, the Institute engaged the attention of a citizen of some wealth, who apparently was more concerned with the city’s actual esthetic possessions and future accomplishments than with its cultural reputation among the boosters of the land. This citizen proceeded forthwith to present the Institute with a magnificent building which provided not only three large galleries, many smaller exhibit rooms, and an excellent auditorium, but also complete quarters and equipment for the schooling of art students.
The Uplift promptly came to life. Possibly it was felt that if such things as paintings and sculpture were worth a two-million-dollar building in which to house them, they might well be taken very seriously. Anyway, some thirteen hundred citizens became members of the Institute at annual fees ranging from ten dollars upward.
So far the interest of these culturally elect seems to be largely financial. Very few of the thirteen hundred, including members of the Institute councils and boards, have every paid more than a perfunctory first visit to the Institute building. Even the exhibition of a magnificent private collection of Corots, Millets, Raeburns and Gainsboroughs failed to bring them through the doors.
Yet whatever the degree of interest shown by the paying membership, it has been noted – and this has occasioned no little surprise to some of the members – that each month several thousand several thousand foreign-born citizens pass through the galleries. They are quite obviously persons of no substance or social pretensions; practically none of them are members of the Institute. But they seem to get a great deal of pleasure out of looking at the pictures.
It may also be noted that the Institute School flourishes and grows apace. It contains some three hundred students, most of whom have little if any money, all of whom are possessed of a great enthusiasm, and a few of whom have already produced some surprisingly creditable work.
III
Somewhat less under the official influence of civic spirit are the women’s clubs. Yet they flourish in the utmost profusion. It may be that they need less assistance from the ideal of municipal glory, because instead of constantly facing the necessity for proselyting in order to keep up membership and income, the ladies are principally concerned with restricting the memberships of their clubs to those ladies whom they hold to be socially qualified to sit with them at the feast of truth and beauty. However this may be, there are today some sixty clubs, embracing about five thousand members; and all of them are distinctly active.
Most of the ladies’ organizations lay great stress on their cultural nature and activities. Among them these are the Woman’s Literary Club, the Monday Circle, the Louisa M. Alcott Club (whose object is “to encourage and develop the highest standard of literary work”), the Book Club, the New Book Club, and of course the Browning and Emerson Clubs. Also the Advance, Alert, Progressive Mothers, Forward Mothers (a symptom of the jazz age?), and the Home Culture Club. All of them go in heavily for literature, though most of them announce that their efforts are also devoted to “service,” the exact nature of which is not usually explained.
The customary program at a meeting of one of these many groups consists of the reading of a paper concerning the life and works of one of the great masters, followed by brief reviews of two or three of his books, and then by a general discussion on the parts of the members. Frequently the course of study is laid out for weeks in advance, and sometimes for the whole season.
Often the paper which provides the piece de resistance of the program presents a startling variety of both subject matter and literary styles. This is due to the ladies’ habit of including, verbatim, whole pages from the works of several of the great man’s biographers, as well as from the works of the great man himself. These excerpts, mingled with other passages in the characteristic styles of the ladies themselves, not infrequently produce effects that are truly astounding.
While practically all of the clubs profess a keen interest in the works of living writers as well as in the classics, it seems that some of the former must be overlooked in view of the vast amount of classical material to be covered. Thus, when a lady high in the councils of one of the most cultural of the groups announced that an early meeting would be devoted to the life and works of Oscar Wilde, it was suggested that there was a brief but brilliant appearance of Wilde to be encountered in Thomas Beer’s The Mauve Decade. “The Mauve Decade?” she asked . . . and then “Beer? How do you spell it?” But then, both Sherwood Anderson and Ernest Hemingway were also excluded from this lady’s literary acquaintance; whatever consolation that may bring to Mr. Beer.
Not all of the clubs, however, pursue the trodden paths of classic literature. One at least – and it is said to be extraordinarily exclusive – goes in for original papers which seem to range widely over the fields of human thought. An idea of the scope of this work may be gleaned from the subjects discussed during a single season by one of the club’s leading members. Her contributions to the intellectual life of the group included “Ghosts in Literature and Life, “ “The Ethics of Being Good,” “The Aurora Borealis” and “Light.” The last named was a socio-scientific treatise which explained that the hectic nature of modern life is due to our excessive exposure to light rays.
One of the clubs, a unit of a national organization, possesses a remarkably ambitious and inclusive program. Its study covers the entire body of the world’s literary culture – “fiction, essays, drama, phantasy, poetry, biography and humor.” In order to save the ladies some part of the stupendous task of wading through a vast sea of material, an obliging publisher has digested it all of it and published in twenty-odd volumes of convenient pocket size. Each of the ladies is permitted to purchase a complete set of these tomes at a price of approximately one hundred dollars, and is thereby equipped to enter upon a full three-year course of enlightenment. To further assure the success of the movement, the publisher’s representative cooperates with the head of the club in building up club membership to the proper size.
Through these many organizations, and in these divers ways, the ladies pursue culture with grim determination. At least, some of them do. The more active ones may belong to three or four different clubs and attend meetings every two or three days. There are program papers to be prepared, review assignments to be read – all the mechanics of scholarship.
There are others who seem to take a more placid attitude toward the Uplift. According to a prominent club official these number from one-half to two-thirds of the total club memberships. Of them this authority says: “Sometimes I just wonder . . . our splendid programs and all . . . and yet, after the program is over and the meeting open for general discussion, it just seems to me that lots of the ladies haven’t been paying the least little bit of attention, and really couldn’t tell you what any of the program was about. That’s the one trouble we have in all our club work. Sometimes I just feel like telling them that all they come for is to drink tea and gossip about their neighbors.”
IV
Interest in literature flourishes even beyond the pale of the women’s clubs. The city supports several bookshops which depend upon the ordinary run of readers as upon those who have been elevated to the cultural distinction of club membership.
Three of these shops do the great bulk of the book business. Of these, two operate as divisions of the leading department stores, and the third sells books exclusively. The former two enjoy an advantage in that they are able to attract the patronage of shoppers who are on their way from the yard-goods to the glove counter, and who, in passing, may be lured into the purchase of the latest opus of Vina Delmar. The latter, on the other hand, is dependent on those who enter in definite quest of literature. It enjoys a somewhat smaller measure of trade on this account, and also because its proprietor stubbornly declines to place on his shelves the works of that great school of creative writing headed by the stupendous Harold Bell Wright.
At the department stores the more popular groups of authors are those represented by Zane Grey, Edgar Wallace, E. Phillips Oppenheim, Margaret Pedler, Kathleen Norris, Grace S. Richmond and Temple Bailey. At the individual shop, which caters to the wealthier trade, literary tastes display a somewhat wider range, though the writers most popular include most of those appearing on any current best-seller list, in both fiction and non-fiction. Since many of the store’s customers are of the world of fashion, it is quite safe to assume that the majority of them will be engaged at any given time in reading, or at least talking about, that particular group of recent publications which is at the moment on the tongue of sophisticated comment.
It is somewhat difficult to analyze the reading tastes of this group because, when requested for an opinion, they become relatively inarticulate. “Oh, I liked it,” “It was simply splendid,” “Pretty good,” “Oh well, I didn’t care much for it.” “Why, I think it’s perfectly disgusting” – these constitute the practically complete range of critical comment.
Among these sophisticates, it is considered bad form to venture any criticism which penetrates beneath the safe and placid surface of personal preference. Were it not for this fact, it would be possible, and interesting, to present a compendium of the opinions of the intelligentsia, tending to explain the great popularity of such works as The Plastic Age, Ex-Wife, Kept Woman, and The President’s Daughter, and to explain why the books which these same readers generally regard as lewd and libidinous should include Jurgen, Mademoiselle de Maupin, A Farewell To Arms, and the complete writings of D. H. Lawrence.
In some cases, however, the actual contents of the volumes are merely of academic importance. As the new mansions of the new rich rise one after the other, it is discovered that the architect has provided shelving which more than accommodates the library accumulated by the family during the course of its rise to affluence. The usual procedure is to measure the amount of empty shelf and hen buy that many feet of assorted books. Occasionally, this practice is productive of more fortunate results than might be expected. A matron who had just finished loading to capacity the library shelves of new home appeared at one of the book shops and announced that she needed two books for the library table. Titles, it seemed, were unimportant. What she wanted was one book bound in a certain shade of green and one bound in black and gold. Quite happily the shade of green she selected enclosed Strange Interlude, and the black and gold volume bore the name of Anatole France.
V
As far as drama is concerned, it has been unnecessary for the Uplift to expend its energies in promoting mass culture. The master minds of Hollywood have taken care of that.
Each week one hundred thousand citizens pass through the doors of the five downtown movie palaces. Sixty miles of celluloid unroll before their enraptured eyes, presenting the miming of the superb artists of the silver screen, headed by the incomparable Clara Bow.
Week after week the customers purify their hearts and strengthen their souls by contemplating the immutable truth that virtue always triumphs and evil is ever overthrown. Reports from the box offices indicate that these drama lovers prefer the films in which evil is allowed to go pretty far before it is overthrown – in fact the farther the better; but before the final flicker and the ultimate squawk they insist on seeing the villain knocked for a loop, and the heroine, her chastity intact, locked fast in the hero’s arms.
Meanwhile the spoken drama, which flourished in the dark days before the Uplift, has passed into oblivion. Year after year, the seasons at the Victory Theatre have become shorter; and each season the theater has been dark a greater number of nights. Even a stock company, which in view of its individual and collective abilities, seemed ideally suited to the popular taste, folded up quietly when the 1930 season was only half completed. Not long thereafter the press carried the glad news that the Victory would be listed among the temples of the talkies.
There were indications of this turn of affairs for many years. As the movies progressed steadily along the path of community enlightenment, it was observed that only the leg-shows could to continue to pack them in at the Victory. In the past few years even these have seemed doomed, and it has been a long time since dramatic offerings enjoyed any hope of a substantial box-office take. When, several years ago, the manager of the Victory was asked why he didn’t book some Shakespearean repertoire, that worthy replied: “Shakespeare? Hell, you can’t get nobody to come to that kind of stuff no more. Why, the last time Julius Caesar was here he played to just sixty-eight dollars.”
Chapter 13: The Cultural Uplift
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There were dark days in years gone by – days when cultural activities in the city depended entirely upon individual and group interest in the arts. Only the music lovers attended concerts and participated in the programs of the Mozart Club. Lecturers drew audiences composed simply of those who wished to hear what the lecturer had to say. And the several literary clubs which flourished quietly but steadily were made up almost exclusively of those who had some acquaintance with literature, and who wished to enrich their possessions in that field.
The great bulk of those participating in such affairs were well satisfied. But it did not suit the boosters. Culture, quire obviously, was insufficiently imbued with civic spirit. What was needed was more and bigger doings; it was time to apply the principles of mass selling toward the glorious end of advancing the cultural reputation of the city. Thus, some years ago, the renaissance got under way.aled to through their actual interest in the arts. Instead, high-pressure selling methods bring them to a realization that the city must be kept well in the forefront of American municipalities esthetically as well as in the annual volume and value of such manufactured products as washing machines, ice cream cones, mattresses and water closets. It is a much simpler and more readily understood appeal – an idea in which the prospective esthetes can really set their teeth; one with which they already enjoy the familiarity of long association in other branches of community activity.
It is also said to be a highly successful appeal. It is claimed by the boosters, that as a result of their incessant and resounding efforts, no American city displays a keener interest in concerts, lectures, art exhibits, literary and music club work, and the like. Whatever the truth of this claim, the annual reports of the various leagues, associations and clubs establish conclusively the fact that thousands participate, however passively, in such activities. The grand total involved in the cultural boom approaches the impressive figure of five per cent of the city’s population.
II
It is in the field of music that the organized Uplift has made its greatest showing. Instead of the occasional concert of other days, there are now two complete courses offered each year: one by the Civic Music League and the other by the Symphony Association. In the operation of these two organizations is revealed a highly intelligent appreciation of the factors involved in the problem of mass and class culture.
The Civic Music League gives five concerts yearly, selling approximately two thousand season tickets at an average price of seven dollars. It is pointed out by League promoters that this is a choice bargain, since each concert is delivered to the customers at a flat price of one dollar and forty cents.
This emphasis upon the economic aspect of the Uplift results not only in a large sale of tickets, but also in uniformly well-filled houses, since the ticket holders, having invested their cash in advance, must attend each concert in order to take full advantage of their bargains.
The same economic factor assures bounteous applause. At a dollar forty, six program numbers with six encores cost about eleven and a half cents each. If, however, the artist can be induced to give two encores instead of one with each number, the cost is reduced to seven and a half cents, or a saving of about one-third. Applause is thus loud and long, achieving, after the first burst of presumed enthusiasm, a steady, monotonous and measured beating of palm upon palm which is designed to break down the strongest artist’s resistance. There is reason to believe that this practice occasionally arouses the ire of the artists themselves. But among the boosters it is generally regarded as conclusive evidence t on the part of the League’s executives enables them to adorn the average season with at least one great artist. Considerably less distinguished performers, at considerably lower fees, fill out the other dates of the season, and thus the annual budget is balanced. When a deficit appears, a stern economy is employed in selecting artists for the ensuring season – a very happy solution of the difficulty, as the consequently lower artistic merit of the programs brings only a few scattered complaints from the subscribers.
Civic Music League concerts are held in Memorial Hall, a vast auditorium of peculiarly depressing aspect; and the innate democracy of theirs affairs is indicated by the fact that it is not considered good form to appear in evening dress.
But while the League is thus catering to the appetite of the masses, the classes are being regaled with the compositions of Brahms and Beethoven through the ministrations of the Symphony Association. The concerts, five each season, have been held until recently in the smaller but more lavishly appointed Victory Theatre. Qualifications for enjoying these more elevated cultural treats include the financial ability to pay about twice as much for a season ticket as is charged by the League, the possession of evening clothes, and the ability to be at ease while taking one’s culture in the comparatively rarefied social atmosphere implied by these considerations.
Each symphony season winds up with a deficit of about ten thousand dollars, since the best efforts of the Association’s promoters are unable to persuade more than six or eight hundred of the culture-loving public to sign up as subscribers. On account of this financial difficulty the powers of the Association stress the social aspect. Over half of the members of its directorate belong to the upper levels of the local peerage; and the balance is carefully selected to include representative leaders from the somewhat less exalted groups among the gentry. With the social complexion of the Association thus nicely balanced, it becomes relatively easy to persuade some fifty of the wealthier subscribers to pledge themselves as guarantors against the inevitable annual deficit.
Some of the subscribers have an appreciative knowledge of the symphonies themselves. A majority of them attend each concert, though certain leaders of community thought have been known to say, in making their subscriptions: “All right, I’ll subscribe if I don’t have to go to the concerts. Those who do attend enjoy themselves thoroughly. As one of the powers in the association remarked, “We try to make each concert a distinguished social event. That’s why we urge everyone to come in evening dress. You know, that always adds tone.”
Somewhat less successful than in the field of music have been the efforts of those who seek to advance community culture through the medium of lecture courses.
One such course, organized just after the war, dribbled out to complete failure after a session or so. Another one was launched three or four years ago by the city’s leading bookseller, who conducted it as a civic undertaking without expectation of profit. This gentleman had a happy inspiration when he placed his money for the opening lecture on that distinguished literary luminary, Mr. Richard Halliburton. Twenty five hundred eager customers jammed Memorial Hall, took on a capacity load of Romance, and fought their way forward at the evening to obtain the priceless memento of the Halliburton autograph. Thus the season avoided a deficit in spite the fact that subsequent lectures by such lesser lights as John Cowper Powys and John Langdon-Davies attracted only about two hundred patrons each.
Succeeding seasons have fared but ill, and each year there is bickering as to whether the lectures should be continued. Every effort is made, however, to assure economic and intellectual safety. At a meeting of cultural leaders, held to determine the feasibility of a course during the 1930-31 season, it was decided that all lecturers must be economical in the matter of fees, and, above all, safe, sane and orthodox in the matter of ideas. When, during this meeting, a gentleman suspected of liberal tendencies had the temerity to suggest the name of Harry Elmer Barnes, a high priestess of the Federation of Women’s Clubs announced that the club women would most assuredly consider it their sacred duty to protect the younger generation from the diabolic and incendiary heresies of which Doctor Barnes stood convicted and damned by his own published writings. The marked preference of most of those who sponsor the course seems to be for travel lectures depicting life in the worlds of foreign lands, coupled with the innocuous philosophical observations of such authorities as the eminent William Lyon Phelps and others.
For many years an effort was made to arouse booster interest in the Art Institute, which was passing through a most precarious infancy in the gloomy basement of Memorial Hall. It seemed an almost impossible task; apparently the graphic and plastic arts left the boosters entirely cold.
A few years ago, however, the Institute engaged the attention of a citizen of some wealth, who apparently was more concerned with the city’s actual esthetic possessions and future accomplishments than with its cultural reputation among the boosters of the land. This citizen proceeded forthwith to present the Institute with a magnificent building which provided not only three large galleries, many smaller exhibit rooms, and an excellent auditorium, but also complete quarters and equipment for the schooling of art students.
The Uplift promptly came to life. Possibly it was felt that if such things as paintings and sculpture were worth a two-million-dollar building in which to house them, they might well be taken very seriously. Anyway, some thirteen hundred citizens became members of the Institute at annual fees ranging from ten dollars upward.
So far the interest of these culturally elect seems to be largely financial. Very few of the thirteen hundred, including members of the Institute councils and boards, have every paid more than a perfunctory first visit to the Institute building. Even the exhibition of a magnificent private collection of Corots, Millets, Raeburns and Gainsboroughs failed to bring them through the doors.
Yet whatever the degree of interest shown by the paying membership, it has been noted – and this has occasioned no little surprise to some of the members – that each month several thousand several thousand foreign-born citizens pass through the galleries. They are quite obviously persons of no substance or social pretensions; practically none of them are members of the Institute. But they seem to get a great deal of pleasure out of looking at the pictures.
It may also be noted that the Institute School flourishes and grows apace. It contains some three hundred students, most of whom have little if any money, all of whom are possessed of a great enthusiasm, and a few of whom have already produced some surprisingly creditable work.
III
Somewhat less under the official influence of civic spirit are the women’s clubs. Yet they flourish in the utmost profusion. It may be that they need less assistance from the ideal of municipal glory, because instead of constantly facing the necessity for proselyting in order to keep up membership and income, the ladies are principally concerned with restricting the memberships of their clubs to those ladies whom they hold to be socially qualified to sit with them at the feast of truth and beauty. However this may be, there are today some sixty clubs, embracing about five thousand members; and all of them are distinctly active.
Most of the ladies’ organizations lay great stress on their cultural nature and activities. Among them these are the Woman’s Literary Club, the Monday Circle, the Louisa M. Alcott Club (whose object is “to encourage and develop the highest standard of literary work”), the Book Club, the New Book Club, and of course the Browning and Emerson Clubs. Also the Advance, Alert, Progressive Mothers, Forward Mothers (a symptom of the jazz age?), and the Home Culture Club. All of them go in heavily for literature, though most of them announce that their efforts are also devoted to “service,” the exact nature of which is not usually explained.
The customary program at a meeting of one of these many groups consists of the reading of a paper concerning the life and works of one of the great masters, followed by brief reviews of two or three of his books, and then by a general discussion on the parts of the members. Frequently the course of study is laid out for weeks in advance, and sometimes for the whole season.
Often the paper which provides the piece de resistance of the program presents a startling variety of both subject matter and literary styles. This is due to the ladies’ habit of including, verbatim, whole pages from the works of several of the great man’s biographers, as well as from the works of the great man himself. These excerpts, mingled with other passages in the characteristic styles of the ladies themselves, not infrequently produce effects that are truly astounding.
While practically all of the clubs profess a keen interest in the works of living writers as well as in the classics, it seems that some of the former must be overlooked in view of the vast amount of classical material to be covered. Thus, when a lady high in the councils of one of the most cultural of the groups announced that an early meeting would be devoted to the life and works of Oscar Wilde, it was suggested that there was a brief but brilliant appearance of Wilde to be encountered in Thomas Beer’s The Mauve Decade. “The Mauve Decade?” she asked . . . and then “Beer? How do you spell it?” But then, both Sherwood Anderson and Ernest Hemingway were also excluded from this lady’s literary acquaintance; whatever consolation that may bring to Mr. Beer.
Not all of the clubs, however, pursue the trodden paths of classic literature. One at least – and it is said to be extraordinarily exclusive – goes in for original papers which seem to range widely over the fields of human thought. An idea of the scope of this work may be gleaned from the subjects discussed during a single season by one of the club’s leading members. Her contributions to the intellectual life of the group included “Ghosts in Literature and Life, “ “The Ethics of Being Good,” “The Aurora Borealis” and “Light.” The last named was a socio-scientific treatise which explained that the hectic nature of modern life is due to our excessive exposure to light rays.
One of the clubs, a unit of a national organization, possesses a remarkably ambitious and inclusive program. Its study covers the entire body of the world’s literary culture – “fiction, essays, drama, phantasy, poetry, biography and humor.” In order to save the ladies some part of the stupendous task of wading through a vast sea of material, an obliging publisher has digested it all of it and published in twenty-odd volumes of convenient pocket size. Each of the ladies is permitted to purchase a complete set of these tomes at a price of approximately one hundred dollars, and is thereby equipped to enter upon a full three-year course of enlightenment. To further assure the success of the movement, the publisher’s representative cooperates with the head of the club in building up club membership to the proper size.
Through these many organizations, and in these divers ways, the ladies pursue culture with grim determination. At least, some of them do. The more active ones may belong to three or four different clubs and attend meetings every two or three days. There are program papers to be prepared, review assignments to be read – all the mechanics of scholarship.
There are others who seem to take a more placid attitude toward the Uplift. According to a prominent club official these number from one-half to two-thirds of the total club memberships. Of them this authority says: “Sometimes I just wonder . . . our splendid programs and all . . . and yet, after the program is over and the meeting open for general discussion, it just seems to me that lots of the ladies haven’t been paying the least little bit of attention, and really couldn’t tell you what any of the program was about. That’s the one trouble we have in all our club work. Sometimes I just feel like telling them that all they come for is to drink tea and gossip about their neighbors.”
IV
Interest in literature flourishes even beyond the pale of the women’s clubs. The city supports several bookshops which depend upon the ordinary run of readers as upon those who have been elevated to the cultural distinction of club membership.
Three of these shops do the great bulk of the book business. Of these, two operate as divisions of the leading department stores, and the third sells books exclusively. The former two enjoy an advantage in that they are able to attract the patronage of shoppers who are on their way from the yard-goods to the glove counter, and who, in passing, may be lured into the purchase of the latest opus of Vina Delmar. The latter, on the other hand, is dependent on those who enter in definite quest of literature. It enjoys a somewhat smaller measure of trade on this account, and also because its proprietor stubbornly declines to place on his shelves the works of that great school of creative writing headed by the stupendous Harold Bell Wright.
At the department stores the more popular groups of authors are those represented by Zane Grey, Edgar Wallace, E. Phillips Oppenheim, Margaret Pedler, Kathleen Norris, Grace S. Richmond and Temple Bailey. At the individual shop, which caters to the wealthier trade, literary tastes display a somewhat wider range, though the writers most popular include most of those appearing on any current best-seller list, in both fiction and non-fiction. Since many of the store’s customers are of the world of fashion, it is quite safe to assume that the majority of them will be engaged at any given time in reading, or at least talking about, that particular group of recent publications which is at the moment on the tongue of sophisticated comment.
It is somewhat difficult to analyze the reading tastes of this group because, when requested for an opinion, they become relatively inarticulate. “Oh, I liked it,” “It was simply splendid,” “Pretty good,” “Oh well, I didn’t care much for it.” “Why, I think it’s perfectly disgusting” – these constitute the practically complete range of critical comment.
Among these sophisticates, it is considered bad form to venture any criticism which penetrates beneath the safe and placid surface of personal preference. Were it not for this fact, it would be possible, and interesting, to present a compendium of the opinions of the intelligentsia, tending to explain the great popularity of such works as The Plastic Age, Ex-Wife, Kept Woman, and The President’s Daughter, and to explain why the books which these same readers generally regard as lewd and libidinous should include Jurgen, Mademoiselle de Maupin, A Farewell To Arms, and the complete writings of D. H. Lawrence.
In some cases, however, the actual contents of the volumes are merely of academic importance. As the new mansions of the new rich rise one after the other, it is discovered that the architect has provided shelving which more than accommodates the library accumulated by the family during the course of its rise to affluence. The usual procedure is to measure the amount of empty shelf and hen buy that many feet of assorted books. Occasionally, this practice is productive of more fortunate results than might be expected. A matron who had just finished loading to capacity the library shelves of new home appeared at one of the book shops and announced that she needed two books for the library table. Titles, it seemed, were unimportant. What she wanted was one book bound in a certain shade of green and one bound in black and gold. Quite happily the shade of green she selected enclosed Strange Interlude, and the black and gold volume bore the name of Anatole France.
V
As far as drama is concerned, it has been unnecessary for the Uplift to expend its energies in promoting mass culture. The master minds of Hollywood have taken care of that.
Each week one hundred thousand citizens pass through the doors of the five downtown movie palaces. Sixty miles of celluloid unroll before their enraptured eyes, presenting the miming of the superb artists of the silver screen, headed by the incomparable Clara Bow.
Week after week the customers purify their hearts and strengthen their souls by contemplating the immutable truth that virtue always triumphs and evil is ever overthrown. Reports from the box offices indicate that these drama lovers prefer the films in which evil is allowed to go pretty far before it is overthrown – in fact the farther the better; but before the final flicker and the ultimate squawk they insist on seeing the villain knocked for a loop, and the heroine, her chastity intact, locked fast in the hero’s arms.
Meanwhile the spoken drama, which flourished in the dark days before the Uplift, has passed into oblivion. Year after year, the seasons at the Victory Theatre have become shorter; and each season the theater has been dark a greater number of nights. Even a stock company, which in view of its individual and collective abilities, seemed ideally suited to the popular taste, folded up quietly when the 1930 season was only half completed. Not long thereafter the press carried the glad news that the Victory would be listed among the temples of the talkies.
There were indications of this turn of affairs for many years. As the movies progressed steadily along the path of community enlightenment, it was observed that only the leg-shows could to continue to pack them in at the Victory. In the past few years even these have seemed doomed, and it has been a long time since dramatic offerings enjoyed any hope of a substantial box-office take. When, several years ago, the manager of the Victory was asked why he didn’t book some Shakespearean repertoire, that worthy replied: “Shakespeare? Hell, you can’t get nobody to come to that kind of stuff no more. Why, the last time Julius Caesar was here he played to just sixty-eight dollars.”
