1933
1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940
Adolf Hitler begins 12 years as dictator of the German Reich; Franklin D. Roosevelt begins 12 years as president of the United States (he is inaugurated March 4 but the "Lame Duck" [Twentieth] Amendment ratified January 23 ends terms of all elected federal officers at noon January 20); Cuban army colonel Fulgencio Batista begins 12 years as president of that island republic after engineering a coup; Antonio de Oliveira Salazar begins 37 years as dictator of Portugal.
Adolf Hitler comes to power as chancellor January 30 on a rising tide of German nationalism and economic unrest (see 1932). Financier and former Reichsbank president Hjalmar Schacht, 56, has persuaded President Hindenburg to give Hitler the position that he sought last year, the Nazis celebrate with a torchlight parade at Berlin, Hitler appoints his devoted aide Rudolf Hess, now 38, to his cabinet, and Hess praises der Führer in a speech: "Do not seek Adolf Hitler with your mind. You will find him through the strength of your hearts! Adolf Hitler is Germany and Germany is Adolf Hitler. He who takes an oath to Hitler takes an oath to Germany!" But former Hitler supporter Erich Ludendorff, now 57, warns Hindenburg that Hitler will take Germany to the Abyss. Britain's 110-year-old Oxford Union votes 275 to 173 February 8 "that this House will in no circumstances fight for King and Country," creating anger and indignation at the university, where irate undergraduates storm the union and tear up the minutes of the debate, and in the British press. Winston Churchill denounces the vote as "that abject, squalid, shameless avowal" and "this ever shameful motion," but the common view in Britain is that Churchill is somewhat mad. Hitler and his associates Hermann Goering and Hjalmar Schacht attend a meeting February 20 of the Association of German industrialists that raises 3 million marks for the forthcoming election.
Fire destroys the Reichstag at Berlin February 27. The Nazis immediately accuse the communists of having started it and fabricate a case against Dutch communist Marinus van der Lubbe, 23, who is tried and will be guillotined early next year, but Reichstag president Hermann Goering is accused at the trial of having set the fire himself (his accuser is Georgi Dimitrov, who will later be premier of Bulgaria; see 1946). Authorities arrest pacifist Carl von Ossietzky February 28 and send him to the Papenburg concentration camp (see 1927; see 1936).
The National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party receives 44 percent of the votes in the Reichstag elections March 5 after a reign of terror in which Adolf Hitler's storm troopers have rounded up anti-Nazi forces and seized newspapers and radio stations, thus stopping campaigns by opposition parties; the Nationalist Party wins only 8 percent despite support from industrialists who include Friedrich Flick, Fritz Thyssen, Alfried Krupp, and Albert Voegler. Now 49, Flick is a close friend of Munich-born elite corps head Heinrich Himmler, 32; he has made a fortune from a smelting process he invented, has become a director of the United Steel Works, and in the next 10 years will give the Nazi Party more than 7 million marks. Hitler proclaims the Third Reich March 15, the Nationalists throw their support to him by helping to pass an Enabling Act March 23, and the Nazi regime is given dictatorial powers; Hitler has adopted the Roman salute and the eagle-topped standard carried by Roman legions. Communist leader Clara Zetkin has denounced der Führer in the Reichstag and goes to Moscow, where she dies June 20 at age 75.
The Hitler Youth is reorganized by National Socialist Party member Baldur von Schirach, 26, who was elected to the Reichstag last year and now works to organize German children; like the Boy Scouts, the Hitler Youth puts emphasis on military drill (and soon has its members inform on parents who do not support der Führer). Schirach will head the organization until 1940, when he will be appointed gauleiter of Vienna.
Austria's Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, 40, proclaims a dictatorship March 7 and soon after dissolves the Bundesversammlung as antigovernment agitation increases following the Nazi success in Germany. Dolfuss prohibits parades and assemblies as of March 8, but Austrian Nazis stage a giant demonstration and riot March 29; when the government forbids wearing of uniforms by members of any political party, Hitler retaliates by imposing a tax of 1,000 marks on any German who visits Austria, thereby ruining Austria's tourist business (see 1934).
President Roosevelt appoints St. Louis-born diplomat Breckinridge Long, 52, ambassador to Italy. Long finds the embassy quarters "dingy," and he leases the splendid Villa Taverna; writing to the president June 27, he says, "Mussolini is an astounding character and the effects of his organized activities are apparent throughout Italy . . . Italy today is the most interesting experiment in government to come above the horizon since the formation of our Constitution 150 years ago . . . The Fascisti in their black shirts are apparent in every community. They are dapper and well dressed and stand up straight and lend an atmosphere of individuality and importance to their surroundings . . . The trains are punctual, well-equipped, and fast" (but see 1935).
Portugal's prime minister and finance minister Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, 44, drafts a new constitution that will make Europe's most backward country a "unitary and corporative republic"—a fascist dictatorship based on political repression that dictator Salazar will head for more than 37 years, keeping his country backward.
A Spanish Fascist Party (the Falange Española) is founded in October by José Antonio Primo de Rivera, 30, marqués de Estrela, son of the late dictator Gen. Miguel Primo de Rivera (see 1931). A coalition of right-wing and centrist parties drives out Prime Minister Manuel Azaña y Díaz, but although he will be arrested next year on charges of having supported an uprising in Catalonia, he will win acquittal and in 1935 will form a left-wing coalition under the name Popular Front (see 1936). Right-wing forces defeat Catalonia's head of state Francesc Macià in a November 19 election and he dies at Barcelona December 25 at age 74.
Former French premier Paul Painlevé dies at his native Paris October 29 at age 69, having gained renown more for his talents as a mathematician and encouragement of aviation than for his political skills.
Iraq's Faisal I dies of a heart attack in a clinic at Berne September 8 at age 50 after a 12-year reign (see 1932). He has made Kirkuk-born nationalist Bakr Sidqi, 43, a general, Bakr massacres Assyrian tribesmen in the north to suppress a rebellion, the League of Nations reacts by trying to rescind full Iraqi independence, but Iraq's British protectors bar any such move. Faisal is succeeded by his 21-year-old Mecca-born son, who will reign until his death in 1939 as Ghazi I (see 1936).
Afghanistan's king Nadir Shah is assassinated at Kabul November 8 after a 4-year reign. His 19-year-old son succeeds to the throne and will reign until 1973 as Mohammed Zahir Shah (see 1964).
An international Disarmament Conference fails to produce any agreement, and Japan announces that she will withdraw from the League of Nations in 1935, having rejected the findings of the Lytton Commission with regard to Japan's invasion of Manchuria (see 1931). Yosuke Matsuoka, 53, went to live with relatives in America at age 13, graduated from the University of Oregon in 1900, and met with Karl Haushofer when Haushofer visited Japan in 1908. He has led the Japanese delegation that walks out in protest after hearing the Lytton Commission report. Japan has created the puppet state of Manchukuo and removes herself from the possibility of any sanctions from the League, which suffers its first serious setback. Berlin announces October 14 that Germany, too, will withdraw, but Welsh-born former House of Commons member and Great War veteran David Davies, 53, founds the New Commonwealth Society with the aim of creating a more effective League of Nations with a police force and an impartial tribunal to resolve international disputes. Former Japanese prime minister Gonnohyoe Yamamoto dies at Tokyo December 8 at age 81 as friction continues between China and Japan (see 1937).
Washington and Moscow establish relations November 16 for the first time since the 1917 revolution. President Roosevelt appoints former Brain Trust member John C. Bullitt as the first U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union.
President Roosevelt commits himself in his inaugural address March 4 "to the policy of the good neighbor" toward Latin American countries. Tennessee-born Secretary of State Cordell Hull, 61, will implement the new policy, departing from traditional U.S. interventionism (which he renounces in December at the Montivideo Conference) and repudiating privileges that have offended countries to the south (see commerce, 1934).
Peru's president Sánchez Cerro is assassinated by an Aprista April 30 and succeeded by Oscar Benevides, who will declare the APRA illegal and thereby reduce its strength, settle a border dispute with Colombia, restore confidence in the nation's economy, and serve until 1939.
Paraguay issues a formal declaration of war against Bolivia May 10 (see 1932). Gen. José Estigarribia mounts a series of attacks along an extended frontier late in October and achieves such success that Bolivia's president Daniel Salamanca dismisses the German general Hans von Kundt, who has trained the army for this Chaco War, and replaces him with Gen. Enrique Peñaranda. U.S. bank loans have enabled the Bolivians to equip their army with modern weaponry, but morale among Bolivia's Indian conscripts has been low (see 1934).
Former Argentine president Hipólito Irigoyen dies at his native Buenos Aires July 3 at age 80.
New York-born under secretary of state Sumner Welles, 40, tries to mediate between Cuba's president Gerardo Machado y Morales and opposition forces. Machado's dictatorship has become more and more authoritarian since 1927, a general strike is called, the army demands Machado's removal, and he goes into exile August 12. A provisional government takes power under the leadership of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, but Col. Fulgencio Batista (y Zaldivar), 32, organizes the "sergeants' revolt," which topples the Céspedes regime in September. Batista will sponsor huge public works programs, encourage the growth of the economy, enrich himself in the process, expand the educational system, be elected president in 1940, and rule as dictator until 1944. Aristocratic career diplomat Welles joined the Foreign Service in 1915, was chief of the State Department's Latin American division at age 28, but will resign under pressure 10 years hence when his political foes argue that his flagrant homosexuality poses a threat to national security.
Former president Calvin Coolidge dies at Northampton, Mass., January 5 at age 60. Wit Dorothy Parker hears of his death and says, "How could they tell?" H. L. Mencken says, more charitably, that should the day ever dawn "when Jefferson's warnings are heeded at last, and we reduce government to its simplest terms, it may very well happen that Cal's bones now resting inconspicuously in the Vermont granite will come to be revered as those of a man who really did the nation a service." But the role of the federal government will soon grow to a size beyond anything Jefferson, Coolidge, or Mencken could have imagined.
The Twentieth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ratified January 23 directs that Congress shall convene in January following its election. Previous Congresses have waited 3 months before meeting, and outrage has grown at some of the measures put through during "lame-duck" sessions by members who have been voted out of office.
Czech-born Chicago mayor Anton J. (Joseph) Cermak, 59, is mortally wounded at Miami February 15 by an assassin thought to have been aiming at President-elect Roosevelt but possibly just a hired gangland hit man. Cermak is credited with (or blamed for) having built Chicago's Democratic political machine. Roosevelt has just come ashore from Vincent Astor's yacht Nourmahal after a pleasure cruise in West Indian waters and is motoring to the railroad station when the shots ring out, but a woman in the crowd seizes the arm of Hackensack, N.J., gunman Giuseppe Zangara and a Miami policeman promptly arrests him. Labeled an anarchist, Zangara is tried, convicted, and executed within a month.
Marine architect William F. Gibbs begins designing destroyers for the U.S. Navy in partnership with Daniel Hargate Cox, with whom he has built several yachts and luxury liners. They will develop an efficient high-pressure, high-temperature steam turbine that will make U.S. destroyers fast and maneuverable.
Congressman Fiorello H. La Guardia of 1932 Norris-La Guardia Act fame unseats Tammany Hall in a special mayoralty election that produces a record turnout. Tammany goon squads receive support from toughs working for mobster Dutch Schultz, who has paid $15,000 to get William C. Dodge elected Manhattan district attorney (Dodge wins by 12,000 votes). Flying squads of college athletes and Golden Glove boxers recruited by traction heir Clendenin J. Ryan, now 28, mix it up with the Tammany thugs; police make arrests, but the violence is widespread. Running on a Republican-City Fusion ticket, "the little flower" receives 868,522 votes, as compared with 609,053 for his Recovery Party challenger Joseph McKee.
Onetime Populist Party leader Mary Elizabeth Lease dies at Callicoon, N.Y., October 29 at age 80.
The Depression forces South Africa's prime minister James Hertzog to form a coalition government with Jan Christiaan Smuts (see 1924). Former clergyman Daniel F. (François) Malan, now 59, edited Hertzog's daily Die Burger beginning in 1915, was in Hertzog's first cabinet 9 years later, but now breaks with his mentor over what he calls a betrayal of Afrikaner principles and starts a "purified" Nationalist Party (see human rights, 1942).
Former British foreign secretary Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon, dies of heart disease at Christon Bank, Northumberland, September 7 at age 71; Gen. Sir Arthur W. Currie of pneumonia and a cerebral aneurism at Montreal November 29 at age 57. He was commander-in-chief of Canadian forces in France in 1918.
The Nazis open the first German concentration camp March 20 at Dachau outside Munich. The facility is for communists and other political prisoners, Jews, and Roms (gypsies) (see Buchenwald, 1937).
The Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei, or secret police) is inaugurated by the Nazis under the leadership of Rudolph Dieles, 32, a brother-in-law of Hitler aide Hermann Goering, who has founded the organization. Industrialist Alfried Krupp, 26, joins the Schutz Staffeinel (SS), having been persuaded (along with his father, Gustav) by Hjalmar Schacht that the new Nazi regime will increase expenditures for armaments and outlaw trade unions.
German feminist Gertrude Baumer, now 59, loses the seat she has held since 1920 in the Reichstag, is interrogated by the new Gestapo, but continues to edit her newspaper Die Frau.
Turkey grants women the right to vote on the same basis as men.
Guatemala's president Jorge Ubico has 100 trade union, student, and political leaders shot (see politics, 1931). He has abolished debt slavery to appease Indian plantation workers, but the vagrancy law that he has pushed through has left their condition little altered, and he issues a decree permitting coffee and banana planters to kill their peons with impunity.
One of the alleged rape victims in the Scottsboro case of 1932 writes a note January 5 to her boyfriend Earl: "I want too make a statment too you," writes Ruby Bates. "Mary Sanders is a goddam lie about those Negroes jazzing me those policemen made me tell a lie that is my statement because I want too clear myself that is all . . . those Negroes did not touch me or those white boys I hope you will believe me the law dont . . . i was drunk at the time and did not know what i was doing i know it was wrong too let those Negroes die on account of me i hope you will believe my statement because it is the gods truth . . . i was jazzed but those white boys jazzed me i wish those Negroes are not Burnt on account of me it is those white Boys fault that is my statement and that is all i know i hope you tell the law." The "Scottsboro Boys" receive a new trial in Alabama (see 1932); it ends in conviction, and the Supreme Court will again reverse the convictions with a landmark ruling that blacks may not be systematically excluded from grand and trial juries. The International Labor Defense engages Romanian-born civil rights lawyer Samuel S. Leibowitz, 40, who comes down from New York with Shad Polier, 27, to take up the cause, a third trial with one black on the jury will end in conviction, but some indictments will be dropped, the sentences will be commuted to life imprisonment, and the defendants will serve a total of 130 years behind bars (one will not be paroled until 1951).
An Alabama court sentences black landowner Ned Cobb (originally Nate Shaw) to 12 years' imprisonment for exchanging shots with a white sheriff after coming to the support of a neighbor whose land was about to be possessed by deputies. Cotton prices have fallen so low that land farmed by black and white sharecroppers is worth even less than the crop grown on it, bankers and merchants loan the tenant farmers money based on the value of the crop, they take payment out of whatever cash the crop fetches, the farmers often have to use all their land for cash crops even if it means they do not have large enough gardens to grow food, and they have to borrow more money to keep their families fed. Now 48, Cobb has been relatively successful, plantation owners resent his success, he has organized a tenant farmers' union to fight against unfair treatment, but he will be imprisoned until 1945.
Lynchings spread across the South; lynch mobs kill 42 blacks.
Admiral Richard E. Byrd, U.S. Navy, leads a second Antarctic expedition with the aim of mapping and claiming territory around the South Pole (see 1929). He will spend the winter of 1934 from March to August alone in a hut; buried beneath the ice 123 miles south of Little America while temperatures plunge to between -58° F. and -76° F. (-50° C. and -60° C.)., Byrd will suffer frostbite and carbon monoxide poisoning before being rescued.
Explorer-colonizer Luigi, duca d'Arezzo, dies at Abruzzi City outside Mogadiscio (later Mogadishu) in Italian Somaliland March 18 at age 60.
German industrialist Fritz Thyssen flees to Switzerland after a falling out with Adolf Hitler; now 59, he loses all his money and property.
Michigan's governor William A. Comstock, 55, orders a bank holiday February 6 and about 20 other states follow suit, but Detroit defaults on its $400 million debt February 14 when bank closings prevent completion of a $20 million emergency loan. The city has been caught between reduced tax revenues and the need for greater welfare support arising from the collapse of the automobile industry, and the debt will not be fully repaid until 1963.
President Roosevelt enters the White House March 4 with more than 15 million Americans out of work and says, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Blacks, unskilled workers, and workers in heavy industry are especially affected by the widespread unemployment, but even Americans with jobs have had their wages and hours reduced. Wage-earner incomes are 40 percent below 1929 levels, and the new president embarks on a frenzied 100 days of activity aimed at improving conditions.
President Roosevelt's Boston-born secretary of labor Frances (originally Fannie Coralie) Perkins, 50, is the first woman cabinet member and for the next 12 years will oversee an unprecedented program of government interest in labor while the trade-union movement gains power and political influence. She directed studies of female and child labor as executive secretary of the Consumers League of New York from 1910 to 1912.
New York-born American Agriculturist editor Henry Morgenthau Jr., 41, gives up his job to become President Roosevelt's secretary of the treasury, working to finance ambitious New Deal programs despite his personal belief that a balanced budget is essential to the national welfare. In the next 12 years he will supervise the spending of $370 billion—three times the amount spent under all 50 previous secretaries of the treasury combined.
Executive Proclamation 2039 issued by President Roosevelt March 5 proclaims a nationwide bank holiday until March 9 and forbids gold exports. Falling real estate values have undermined bank loans; some 5,504 banks with total deposits of $3,432 million have closed their doors since January 1, 1930; more than 11,000 have failed or had to merge; the total number of banks has fallen 40 percent from 25,000 to 14,000; and fear of further closings has brought the country to the verge of panic. The Emergency Banking Act passed by Congress March 6 after just 1 day of deliberation gives the Treasury Department control over banking transactions and foreign exchange, forbids hoarding or export of gold, and authorizes banks to open as soon as examiners determine them solvent. The president's Executive Order 2039 extends the bank holiday indefinitely, but Executive Order 6073 issued March 10 requires the banks to reopen. They begin to do so March 13, and about 75 percent are open by March 16.
Reconstruction Finance Corp. (RFC) director Jesse Jones becomes RFC chairman, replacing Eugene Meyer (see 1932). Jones will head the RFC until 1939, forcing loan applicants to increase efficiency, obliging top executives to accept salary cuts and in some cases hire financial experts, putting pressure on corporate boards to replace inadequate CEOs, requiring Postal Telegraph to merge with Western Union in an industry that will no longer support both, and saving thousands of jobs by returning many companies to profitability. By the time it is dissolved in 1946 the RFC will have disbursed $50 billion in federal money, but every penny will be returned, and the RFC will serve as a model for future federal bail-out loan guarantees (see Federal Loan Agency, 1939).
The Economy Act approved by Congress March 20 reduces government salaries by 15 percent. Congress has convened March 5 for an emergency session that will continue for 100 days, during which time President Roosevelt will sign 15 historic bills.
President Roosevelt's Executive Order 6102 issued April 5 requires that all private gold holdings (gold coins, gold certificates, and bullion) be surrendered to Federal Reserve banks in exchange for other coin or currency. The United States abandons the gold standard April 19 by presidential proclamation, the last of the $20 gold pieces ("Double Eagles") minted since 1907 have been struck, owning such coins becomes illegal, and many bankers and financiers view the move with horror (see American Liberty League, 1934); a Joint Resolution to Suspend the Gold Standard and Abrogate the Gold Clause adopted by Congress June 5 nullifies all U.S. contracts that promise to repay interest or principal in gold, but Roosevelt rejects a currency-stabilization plan proposed by the gold-standard countries meeting in July at a World Monetary and Economic Conference at London. In October he authorizes the Reconstruction Finance Corp. to buy newly mined gold at $31.36 per ounce, 27¢ above the world market. Aiken, S.C.-born U.S. District Court judge John M. (Munro) Woolsey, 56, at New York upholds the constitutionality of the anti-gold hoarding provisions in the Emergency Banking Act in November (Campbell v. Chase National Bank).
Germany's new Nazi regime holds elaborate May Day celebrations but outlaws the nation's free trade unions May 2, throwing their leaders into prison. By late June the free unions will have been dissolved, replaced by a German Labor Front headed by Hitler's drunken henchman Robert Ley, 43, who will confiscate union funds and use the money to finance a Kraft durch Freude (or Strength through Joy, KdF) program intended to increase productivity.
A Federal Emergency Relief Act passed by Congress May 12 establishes a $500 million fund that can be distributed in grants to the states. Former social worker Harry (Lloyd) Hopkins, 43, is appointed federal administrator of emergency relief. The Thomas Amendment to the Emergency Banking Act allows direct purchase of federal securities by Federal Reserve Banks; adopted May 12, it also permits the Federal Reserve Board to double reserve requirements of member banks.
A U.S. Employment Service created June 6 tries to find jobs for the unemployed. Congress enacts the first minimum wage law July 12, setting the minimum at 38¢ per hour (see Fair Labor Standards Act, 1938).
The Banking Act of 1933 (Glass-Steagall Act) signed into law by President Roosevelt June 16 creates a wall between commercial banks and the securities industry. Banks have been investing their own assets in securities and making unsound loans to shore up companies or the prices of their shares. Glass-Steagall forbids banks to deal in stocks and bonds (J. P. Morgan Co. will split off Morgan Stanley to comply) and insures bank deposits. The diminutive Sen. Carter Glass (D. Va.), now 76, and Rep. Henry B. (Bascom) Steagall (D. Ala.), 60, have proposed the measure (Steagall agreed to co-sponsor it after Glass agreed to authorize bank deposit insurance for the first time). Senators opposed to the measure have filibustered for 3 weeks to block it, bankers denounce it, but it will not be totally repealed until 1999.
A National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) passed by Congress June 16 provides for "codes of fair competition" in 700 industries and for collective bargaining with labor, whose unions have dropped in membership from 3.5 million to fewer than 3 million (Section 7a of the new act gives workers the right to join unions). Industry agrees to shorten working hours, pay minimum wages of $12 to $13 per week, limit child labor to 40 hours per week, and in some cases limit production and fix prices. President Roosevelt appoints former U.S. Army Provost Marshal Hugh S. (Samuel) Johnson, 50, as National Recovery Administration (NRA) director (Johnson is a protégé of Bernard M. Baruch, with whom FDR frequently consults), and the first NRA Blue Eagle signs of cooperation with the National Recovery Administration appear in store and factory windows August 1: "We Do Our Part" (but see court decision, 1935).
U.S. textile companies adopt a fair practice code that reduces the workweek from 6 days to 5 and the workday from 12 hours to 8, but the companies will "chisel" on the code and start demanding that workers produce as much in 8 hours as they did in 12 (see strike, 1934).
A National Labor Board established by President Roosevelt August 5 under the NRA works to enforce the right of collective bargaining under the chairmanship of U.S. Sen. Robert F. Wagner, 56 (D. N.Y.) (see NLRB, 1934; Wagner Act, 1935).
The U.S. national income falls to $40.2 billion, down from $87.8 billion in 1929; the national wealth falls to $330 billion, down from $439 billion.
Typical annual U.S. earnings: congressman $8,663, lawyer $4,218, physician $3,382, college teacher $3,111, engineer $2,250, public school teacher $1,227 (5,000 Chicago schoolteachers storm the banks for back pay April 24 after being paid for 10 months in scrip), construction worker $907, sleep-in domestic servant $260 ($21.66 per month), hired farm hand $216.
A Stetson hat sells for $5, a gas stove for $23.95.
Dun & Bradstreet is created by a merger of New York's R. G. Dun & Co. with Cincinnati's Bradstreet Co. Dun was founded in 1841, taken over in 1859 by mercantile authority Robert Graham Dun, and has published Dun's Review since 1893; Bradstreet was founded by John M. Bradstreet in 1849 under the name Bradstreet's Improved Mercantile Agency; Dun & Bradstreet will provide financial data and credit ratings of U.S. business firms and business executives, many of them now in dire straits.
A strike by cotton workers at Pixley, Calif., October 10 brings out some 18,000 employees demanding higher pay; they will win the strike, but only after four have been killed.
Harry Hopkins persuades President Roosevelt to establish a Civil Works Administration (CWA) November 9 to provide emergency jobs for 4 million unemployed Americans through the winter (see 1934; WPA, 1935)
Workers at the Hormel Packing Co. plant at Austin, Minn., stage the first sit-down strike November 13.
Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average closes December 30 at 99.90, up from 59.93 at the end of 1932.
Saudi Arabia's Abdul-Aziz ibn-Saud gives Standard Oil of California a 60-year exclusive concession to explore for oil on a 320,000-square-mile tract of desert (see 1932). English Arabist-adventurer H. St. John Philby has reminded the king of a phrase in the Koran: "God changeth not what is within people unless they change what is in themselves." Ibn-Saud replies, "Philby! If anyone would give me a million pounds I would give him all the concessions he wants." He receives a loan of $170,327 from SoCal, which has recently begun pumping oil on the Persian Gulf island of Bahrain and will find in 1938 that its concession overlies the world's richest petroleum reserve. To help exploit the Saudi Arabian reserve, SoCal makes a 50-50 arrangement with the Texas Co., forming Arabian American Oil Co. (Aramco) to produce the petroleum and CalTex to market it through Texaco outlets in Europe, Africa, and Asia (Aramco pays Philby $1,000 per month and will later take in other partners, including the Saudi Arabian government [see 1950], which will acquire full ownership in 1976) (see 1938).
Gasoline sells for 18¢ per gallon in America.
The Tennessee Valley Authority Act passed by Congress May 18 creates the TVA with a mandate to maintain and operate the power plant at Muscle Shoals, Ala. (see Wilson Dam, 1927) and to develop the economy of the 41,000-square-mile region that includes parts of Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. Sen. George W. Norris (R. Neb.) sponsored bills beginning a decade ago that would have created such an independent government corporate agency, former presidents Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover vetoed the legislation in 1928 and 1931, respectively, but President Roosevelt has redrafted it and signs it enthusiastically, launching the federal government on a program that goes well beyond earlier proposals. The authority's mandate is to build 11 dams at strategic points on the Tennessee River and its tributaries for generation of power that will supply electricity to residents of the valley, only 3 percent of whose farmers have ever had it, and to control the rivers and improve "the economic and social well-being of the people living in said river basin," one of the nation's poorest regions (see Supreme Court decision, 1936).
Commonwealth & Southern Co. lawyer Wendell L. Willkie succeeds founder Bernard C. Cobb as president of the giant utilities holding company, which has had a monopoly on power in the Tennessee Valley but done little to help farmers (see 1929). Now 44, Willkie begins attacking the TVA and other New Deal policies on grounds that they represent unwarranted federal intrusion into private enterprise. Within 2 years he will be the utility industry's leading critic of the TVA, and he will guide the company effectively through the Depression.
Pennsylvania-born Secretary of the Interior Harold L. (LeClair) Ickes, 59, becomes administrator of the petroleum industry under the new National Industry Recovery Administration. Nominally a Republican, he has broken with his party and renames Hoover Dam, calling it Boulder Dam (see 1932). Six Companies president Warren A. Bechtel dies of an accidental prescription-drug overdose at Moscow's National Hotel August 29 at age 61. He is succeeded as head of Bechtel Co. by his son Stephen (Davison) Bechtel, 32, who served with the Army Corps of Engineers in France during the Great War and 4 years ago persuaded his father to go into the pipeline business. The younger Bechtel becomes chief engineer for the entire project, whose construction proceeds apace as 4,000 workers labor under the direction of Frank Crowe, who devises an ingenious aerial tramway to deliver men and wet cement wherever they are needed (see 1935).
Survey work begins September 3 on the Grand Coulee Dam, to be built in eastern Washington State for hydroelectric power, to control the rampaging Columbia River, and to provide irrigation. Private power companies have opposed the project, as did the Hoover administration, but President Roosevelt has favored it, and the Bureau of Reclamation has produced films designed to win public approval. Ten communities are evacuated, the remains of 700 Native Americans are relocated, and the river is diverted to expose bedrock, which is relatively close to the surface in the arid region (see 1941).
The Dnieper River Dam is completed in the Soviet Ukraine. Minnesota-born engineer Hugh Lincoln Cooper, now 68, built the Muscle Shoals Dam in Alabama and has directed construction of the 810,000-horsepower hydroelectric installation, which will save 3 million tons of coal per year.
The Baltic-White Sea Stalin Ship Canal opens in the Soviet Union to link Povenets on Lake Onega with Belmorsk on the White Sea. Slave labor has built the 140-mile canal in 2 years at a cost of some 250,000 lives, but its shallow draft and primitive wooden locks will soon make it obsolete (see 1923; Moscow-Volga Canal, 1937).
The Illinois Waterway linking the Great Lakes with the Gulf of Mexico via the Mississippi River opens officially at Chicago June 22.
The S.S. Europa of the North German-Lloyd line crosses from Cherbourg to New York in 4 days, 16 hours, 48 minutes, breaking the transatlantic speed record set by her sister ship S.S. Bremen in 1929.
The Italian Line's new passenger liner S.S. Rex sets a new transatlantic speed record by crossing from Cherbourg to New York in 4 days, 13 hours, 58 minutes. Built at Genoa on orders from Benito Mussolini, she carries 2,100 passengers and wins the Hales Trophy, an enamel-and-gold award created by George Hales, MP, to be given to the fastest liner on the North Atlantic run.
The S.S. Queen of Bermuda goes into service for Furness, Withy & Co., whose 22,575-ton ship is slightly larger than the 2-year-old Monarch of Bermuda and will remain in service until 1966.
United Fruit Co.'s Great White Fleet grows to include 95 vessels (see 1899).
The Warsaw Convention signed by representatives of several European countries in October 1929 takes effect February 13, providing for a uniform liability code and uniform documentation on tickets and cargo for international carriers. It limits liability for loss of life or injury to $8,300 except where willful misconduct can be proved (the convention is designed to keep large damage claims from putting fledgling airlines out of business). Britain will not become a party to the convention until March 1934, the United States not until the end of July 1934.
Amelia Earhart flies from Los Angeles to Newark July 1, making the flight in 17 hours, 17 minutes.
Air France is founded August 30 by a merger of France's Aeropostale with an aircraft manufacturing company headed by Louis Breguet, 53, who built and flew his first plane in 1907.
General Motors assumes leadership in U.S. motorcar sales, with Chrysler second, Ford third, but Ford last year offered a redesigned Model A as a Model B with an optional V-8 engine and a $460 price tag (versus $410 for the four-cylinder model); it can reach a speed of 75 miles per hour (for the sedan, 80 for the roadster). Some 300,000 have been sold despite the depressed economy (see 1936).
A new Pontiac coupe sells for $585, a new Chevrolet half-ton pickup truck for $650, a 1929 Ford for $58.
Rolls-Royce cofounder Sir Henry Royce dies at West Wittering, Sussex, April 22 at age 70.
Adolf Hitler takes over Autobahn construction and claims it as a National Socialist Party effort (see 1932). "We are setting up a program the execution of which we do not want to leave to posterity," he says, and construction resumes in September with thousands of previously unemployed men working under the direction of engineer Fritz Todt (see 1935).
Raleigh bicycles are introduced in America (see 1888; Sturmey-Archer gears, 1902), but the lightweight bike costs substantially more than domestic makes.
Chicago bicycle maker Ignaz Schwinn, now 73, introduces sturdier-framed bikes with balloon tires based on motorcycle tires in an effort to revive flagging sales (see 1895). The streamlined new models attract youngsters (see 1938).
London's Underground displays a new subway diagram designed by draftsman Henry C. Beck, 29, that is geographically inaccurate but provides such a beautifully organized image of the city that it will be retained into the next century.
Osaka's first subway line opens May 20 between Umeda and Shinsaibashi with Japan's first publicly funded line, beginning a system that will grow by 1997 to be a 114-kilometer network carrying 957 million passengers per year.
New York's new Independent subway line begins the F train from 179th Street in Jamaica to Manhattan and thence to Coney Island's Stillwell Avenue. The trip takes 85 minutes. The A train goes into service on the BMT. The new express will be extended from 207th Street in Manhattan to Far Rockaway or Lefferts Boulevard—a journey of 100 minutes for 5¢ (see Popular songs, 1941). The D train goes into service on the BMT from 205th Street in the Bronx to Coney Island's Stillwell Avenue—an 85-minute journey for 5¢.
Inventor Kate Gleason dies at her native Rochester, N.Y., January 9 at age 67, leaving an estate of $1.4 million.
Dow Chemical starts building a plant at Long Beach, Calif, to produce iodine from oil field brine. Dow will break the British-Chilean nitrate monopoly in iodine and bring the price down from $4.50 per pound to 81¢.
Weymouth, Mass.-born chemist Gilbert Newton Lewis, 57, at the University of California, Berkeley, prepares a pure sample of heavy water (deuterium oxide). He has been the first to isolate deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen (see Urey, 1931).
Physicist Philipp Lenard denounces "Jewish science," including Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. Now 71, Lenard is an ardent supporter of Nazism, but the emigration of Jewish researchers will cripple Germany's scientific community for years to come.
The Steinheim skull unearthed along with elephant and rhinoceros bones from a gravel pit 12 miles north of Stuttgart dates to the Pleistocene era. It will be classified as belonging to an early subspecies of Homo sapiens called Homo sapiens heidelbergensis, and its discovery marks a step forward in the study of evolution.
Belgian biologist Albert Claude, 34, isolates the first cancer virus.
British biochemist Ernest (Lawrence) Kennaway, 52, isolates the first pure chemical carcinogen (cancer-causing chemical) and shows that a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon from subtotal combustion will cause cancer in test animals (see 1915). Such hydrocarbons are found in air pollution, auto exhaust, and cigarette smoke (see 1936; Ochsner, 1945).
The influenza virus is isolated for the first time following a London epidemic (see pandemic, 1918; Goodpasture, 1931; Francis, 1934).
French researchers develop a neurotropic vaccine against yellow fever using a strain of attenuated yellow fever virus (see 1936; Walter Reed, 1900).
Polish neurophysiologist and psychiatrist Manfred J. Sakel, 33, at Vienna's University Neuropsychiatric Cinic reports the treatment of schizophrenia by repeatedly using insulin to induce coma (see Wagner-Jauregg, 1917). He has used insulin to tranquilize morphine addicts, one of whom received an accidental overdose and went into a coma; his mental state seemed better after he recovered, Sakel has theorized that inducing convulsions in schizophrenics might be beneficial, his initial experiments show that 88 percent of patients improve, Sakel will emigrate to America in 1936 and publish The Pharmacological Shock Treatment of Schizophrenia in 1938, but later studies will find that his treatment is less effective than was first thought (see Meduna, 1935).
The United States has 5,000 new cases of infantile paralysis (poliomyelitis) (see Roosevelt, 1921). Some victims suffer respiratory failure and can be kept alive only with the Iron Lung invented in 1927 (see March of Dimes, 1938).
"Sister Kenny" opens her first clinic for treating victims of poliomyelitis. Australian Army Nurse Corps war veteran Elizabeth Kenny, 47, (the "Sister" denotes the rank of second lieutenant given her in 1916) has an income derived from royalties on the patent for a stretcher equipped with shock-treatment appliances that she invented for patients en route to hospital. Polio has no known cure, but physicians have been immobilizing patients with splints and casts, which cause their muscles to atrophy. Sister Kenny uses warm wool compresses to relieve pain and spasms plus limb manipulation therapy. The medical establishment disdains her methods, especially in Australia, but she will open a facility in Britain in 1937 and one at Minneapolis in 1940 as she travels the world demonstrating her treatment.
Pathologist William T. Councilman dies at York Village, Me., May 26 at age 79; bacteriologist Albert Calmette at Paris October 29 at age 70, His BCG vaccine against tuberculosis will not be used in America until 1940 (it will be administered widely to physicians, nurses, and others at particularly high risk of contact with the disease); Emile Roux dies at Paris November 3 at age 79.
The University of Frankfurt bars German theologian-philosopher Paul Johannes Tillich, 46, on orders from Adolf Hitler, whose Nazi movement Tillich has criticized. He has held professorships at Marburg, Dresden, and Leipzig, but none will have him now, so he emigrates to America and teaches at the Union Theological Seminary in New York.
President Roosevelt goes on the radio March 12, begins, "My friends . . .," and urges listeners to have faith in the banks; he tries to calm Depression fears and win support for New Deal measures being undertaken to restore the nation's economic health. Washington, D.C.-born CBS announcer Robert Trout (originally Robert Albert Blondheim), 23, calls the president's radio talks "fireside chats."
Bell Telephone Laboratories engineer and high-vacuum radio tube inventor Harold DeForest Arnold dies of a heart attack at Summit, N.J., July 10 at age 49.
Radio set ownership reaches 63 percent of U.S. households, up from 10 percent in 1925.
Frequency modulation (FM) provides static-free radio reception. Edwin H. Armstrong of 1917 superheterodyne circuit fame proved in 1915 that radio waves and static have the same electrical characteristics; having insisted that any attempt to eliminate static without some radically new principle would be fruitless and that hundreds of patents for static eliminating devices are worthless, he now perfects FM (see Zenith, 1940).
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers develops the first "walkie-talkie" portable two-radio sets with help from Paul V. Galvin of Motorola (see 1929).
IBM enters the typewriter business by acquiring a firm that has been trying for 10 years to perfect an electric office typewriter (see 1924). Gambling that the Depression would be short lived, CEO Thomas J. Watson has continued production unabated, warehousing unsold machines, hiring engineers laid off by other countries, and building a research and development facility at Endicott, N.Y. (see IBM Selectric, 1961).
Newsweek magazine has its beginnings in a 10¢ magazine published at New York February 17 under the name News-Week by English-born journalist Thomas J. C. (John Cardel) Martyn, 41, who has been foreign editor for Henry Luce's 10-year-old Time; calling Luce's magazine "too inaccurate, too superficial, too flippant and imitative," he has raised $2.25 million in startup money from 120 investors who include Paul Mellon and John Hay Whitney (see 1937; 1961).
The Catholic Worker begins publication May 1 with the aim of uniting workers and intellectuals in joint efforts to improve farming, education, and social conditions. Founder Dorothy Day, now 35, has since 1922 supervised a shelter in New York's Bowery and published a penny newspaper that expresses her religious commitment to human rights. She receives support from French-born editor Peter (Aristide) Maurin, 55, who has developed a program of social reconstruction he calls "the green revolution." The new monthly will be a voice for pacifism and social justice; circulation by year's end is 100,000.
The Reader's Digest publishes its first original signed articles; departing from its 11-year-old policy of condensing pieces from other publications, it begins to plant feature stories for subsequent publication in Digest versions (see 1922; 1955).
Esquire magazine begins publication in October. Editor-publisher Arnold Gingrich, 29, is a former copywriter who has been editing Apparel Arts at Chicago since 1931. Intended initially to be a men's fashion quarterly distributed through retail stores, Esquire publishes a story by Ernest Hemingway in its first issue, features risqué cartoons and drawings of scantily clad women, quickly sells out on newsstands despite its high 50¢ cover price, begins monthly publication, and in its first 3 years will sell 10 million copies with help from good writing by Albert Camus, Clarence Darrow, John Dos Passos, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Aldous Huxley, H. L. Mencken, Dorothy Parker, Damon Runyon, William Saroyan, Georges Simenon, John Steinbeck, and other leading writers.
Denver Post publisher Frederick G. Bonfils dies at Denver February 2 at age 72 in the midst of a libel suit against Roy W. Howard's rival Rocky Mountain News; magazine publisher-philanthropist Cyrus H. K. Curtis dies at Wyncote, Pa., June 7 at age 82.
The Washington Post changes hands June 1 as millionaire Eugene Meyer outbids Evalyn Walsh McLean, wife of owner Edward B. (Ned) McLean, whose father, John R. McLean, bought the paper in 1905 (see 1877). A heavy drinker, Ned has owned the paper since his father's death in 1916 but has let it dwindle to a sheet of only 12 to 14 pages. His wife wears the Hope Diamond but cannot match Meyer's auction bid of $825,000 for the bankrupt paper, which has a true circulation of less than 50,000, is in fifth place among the city's five dailies, and has been losing $1 million per year. Now 57, Meyer offered $5 million for the Post 4 years ago; he has quit government service because of his opposition to the New Deal, but his daughter Katharine, now 15, will marry Florida-born New Dealer Philip L. Graham, now 17, in 1940, circulation of the Post will reach 165,000 by 1943, advertising linage will increase from 4 million to 12 million, and the paper will become a progressive force in U.S. journalism (seeTimes-Herald, 1954; Newsweek, 1961).
The comic strip "Alley Oop" by cartoonist Vincent T. Hamlin, 34, begins appearing in U.S. newspapers August 7. Hamlin has worked for an oil company in southwest Texas, developed an interest in fossils, and dreamed up a Stone Age hero who lives in the Kingdom of Moo and rides on the neck of his pet dinosaur Dinny (ignoring the fact that humans and dinosaurs never coexisted). The strip will continue into the next century.
The American Newspaper Guild is founded at Washington, D.C., in December to protect city-room employees. New York World-Telegram reporter Heywood C. Broun, 45, is elected president.
Kirkus Reviews has its beginnings in January as former Harper and Bros. children's book department head Virginia Kirkus, 38, sends out review bulletins to 10 subscribing booksellers who pay $10 per month for her Bookshop Service. Harper's discontinued its children's department last year and gave the Meadville, Pa.-born Kirkus 6 months to look for a new job; she visited her family in Europe (her clergyman father had been assigned to the American Church at Munich), and on the return voyage she decided to start the New York-based service for which she changes her fee schedule in April, charging the smallest book stores $2.50, the largest $15; by year's end she has reviewed nearly 1,000 books, will expand her customer-base to libraries in 1935, will have more than 1,500 subscribers by 1950, and by the mid-1950s will be charging libraries $19 to $32 per month as publishers supply her with galley proofs and she adds book clubs, literary agents, radio stations, and even publishers to her subscriber list.
Nazis stage a May 10 torchlight parade in Berlin's Obernplatz with a speech by Adolf Hitler's minister of popular enlightenment and propaganda Joseph Goebbels to a crowd of about 40,000. The parade ends with students burning about 25,000 "subversive" books looted from libraries and bookstores across the country; destroyed in the pyre are "un-German" works not only by Jewish and Marxist authors such as Sholem Asch, Albert Einstein, Lion Feuchtwanger, Sigmund Freud, and Karl Marx but also by writers such as Franz Boaz, John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway, Helen Keller, Sinclair Lewis (who says it should be considered a "tribute"), Jack London, Heinrich and Thomas Mann, Erich Maria Remarque, Margaret Sanger, Upton Sinclair, and Franz Werfel.
Nonfiction: The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein, whose book is actually her own autobiography rather than that of the woman who has been her companion and secretary since 1907. "Rose is a rose is a rose," writes Stein, who is famous for being more concerned with the sound and rhythm of words than with intelligibility; Down and Out in Paris and London by English writer George Orwell (originally Eric Blair), 30, whose health was broken by the climate while serving in the Burma Imperial Police and who has experienced poverty as a struggling writer; English Political Thought in the Nineteenth Century by Connecticut-born Harvard historian (Clarence) Crane Brinton, 35; Orthodoxy in Massachusetts by Chicago-born historian Perry (Gilbert Eddy) Miller, 28; Life in Lesu by Philadelphia-born anthropologist Hortense Powdermaker, 32, examines life in a tiny village on the southwest Pacific island of New Ireland. Having studied under Bronislaw Malinowski at the London School of Economics, Powdermaker wins funding from the Social Science Research Council to study the community of Indianola, Miss. (see 1939); Baghdad Sketches by British travel writer Freya (Madeline) Stark, 40, who has become fluent in Arabic and Turkish and will go on to master other languages and dialects; Congo Solo: Misadventures Two Degrees North by Emily Hahn, who has worked with the Red Cross in the Belgian Congo.
Philosopher George Herbert Palmer dies at Cambridge, Mass., May 7 at age 91; philosopher Irving Babbitt at Cambridge, Mass., July 15 at age 67; lexicographer H. W. Fowler at Hinton St. George, Somerset, December 26 at age 75.
Fiction: Man's Fate (La Condition Humaine) by French novelist André Malraux, 32, deals with the undercover struggle against imperialism in Indochina; Saint Manuel the Good, Martyr (San Manuel Bueno, martír) by Miguel de Unamuno; The Talesof Jacob (Die Geschichten Jaacobs) by Thomas Mann; The Hangman (Bödeln) by Pär Lagerkvist; The Bark Tree (Le Chiendent) by French novelist Raymond Queneau, 30; La Chatte by Colette; Barnabo of the Mountains (Barnabo delle montagne) by Italian journalist-novelist Dino Buzzati, 26; Fontamara by Italian novelist Ignazio Silone (originally Secondo Tranquili), 33, whose anti-Fascist work exposes the plight of Italy's southern peasants (the author helped to found the Italian Communist Party in 1922, settled in Switzerland 3 years ago, and will soon become disillusioned with communism); The Forty Days of Musa Dagh (Die vierzig Tage des Musa Dagh) by Austrian poet-novelist Franz (Viktor) Werfel, 43; All Night at Mr. Stanyhurst's by English novelist Hugh Edwards, 35; Water on the Brain by Compton Mackenzie, whose satire attacks the British secret service for having prosecuted him last year in connection with alleged violation of the 1911 Official Secrets Act; Opening Day by English novelist David Gascoyne, 17; A Glastonbury Romance by John Cowper Powys; A Nest of Simple Folk by Sean O'Faolain; Lost Horizon by English novelist James Hilton, 33, who fascinates readers with a fictional Shangri-la in the Himalayas of Tibet; Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West, whose advice-to-the-lovelorn newspaper columnist becomes involved with some of his correspondents; God's Little Acre by Erskine Caldwell; The Last Adam by James Gould Cozzens; Rebecca by English novelist Daphne du Maurier, 26, a granddaughter of the late novelist and Punch caricaturist George du Maurier; Frost in May by English journalist-novelist Antonia White (née Botting), 34; Cold Comfort Farm by English novelist Stella Dorothea Gibbons, 31, satirizes rural melodramas; Daffy Boy (Doidinho) by José Lins do Rego; The Fault of Angels by Buffalo, N.Y.-born novelist Paul Horgan, 30, who was raised in New Mexico; Imitation of Life by Fannie Hurst; Let the Hurricane Roar by South Dakota-born novelist Rose Wilder Lane, 46; The Frontenac Mystery (Le Mystère Frontenac) by François Mauriac; Hag's Nook by Pennsylvania-born mystery novelist John Dickson Carr, 27; Murder Must Advertise: A Detective Story and Hangman's Holiday by Dorothy L. Sayers; Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back by H. C. McNeile.
Novelist George Moore dies at London January 21 at age 80; mystery writer Earl Derr Biggers suffers a heart attack in March at Palm Springs and dies at Pasadena, Calif., April 5 at age 48; Sir Anthony Hope dies at Walton-on-the-Hill, Surrey, July 8 at age 70; Publishers Weekly editor-publisher Richard R. Bowker at Stockbridge, Mass., November 12 at age 85.
James Joyce's 1922 novel Ulysses is acceptable for publication in the United States, rules Justice John M. Woolsey of the U.S. District Court at New York December 6 (United States v. One Book Called "Ulysses"). Customs officials at New York seized a copy of the book last year as it was being sent to Random House, the press has raised an outcry, and Judge Woolsey decides that the "dirty" words in the 11-year-old book "are old Saxon works known to almost all men and, I venture, to many women, and are such words as would be naturally and habitually used, I believe, by the types of folk whose life, physical and mental, Joyce is seeking to describe." They are, in short, appropriate in context and not gratuitous, says Woolsey. The federal government will lose on appeal in August of next year, and Random House will then publish the first authorized U.S. edition. British authorities will legalize it in 1936, but U.S. Post Office authorities continue to seize copies of the 1928 D. H. Lawrence novel Lady Chatterley's Lover (see 1959).
Poetry: Residence on Earth (Residencia en la tierra) by Pablo Neruda, who has published the work in individual pieces between 1925 and 1931 during a period of spiritual nihilism; The Winding Stair by William Butler Yeats; Mount Zion by London-born poet John Betjeman, 27; Now With His Love by John Peale Bishop.
Poet Sara Teasdale dies of a sleeping-pill overdose at New York January 28 at age 48; Greek poet C. P. Cavafy at his native Alexandria, Egypt, April 29 at age 70; Anna, comtesse de Noailles, at her native Paris April 30 at age 56.
Painting: The Dance by Henri Matisse; The Street by French painter Balthus (Balthasar Klossowski), 25; Departure (triptych) by Max Beckmann; Apotheosis of the Family (mural) by artist-illustrator N. C. Wyeth (for the Wilmington Savings Fund Society building in Delaware); Child Psychology by Norman Rockwell (cover illustration, Saturday Evening Post, November 25). Painter-craftsman-decorator Louis Comfort Tiffany dies at New York January 17 at age 84 (his Tiffany studios filed for bankruptcy last year); Elizabeth Thompson Lady Butler dies at Gormanston, Ireland, October 2 at age 86; George Luks at New York October 29 at age 66.
Kansas City's Nelson-Atkins Museum of Fine Arts opens under the name William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts in the mansion of the late Kansas City Star editor-publisher William Rockhill Nelson surrounded by 20 acres of lawn. The trust fund set up in Nelson's will has grown to have $13 million; the museum will be noted for its Oriental collection, but the benefactor's will stipulated that no work could be purchased until the artist had been dead for at least 30 years.
Germany suppresses all modernistic painting in favor of superficial realism.
Murals: Man at the Crossroads by Diego Rivera for New York's Radio City Music Hall. When Rockefeller Center officials notice that the 63-foot-by-17-foot mural incorporates a small portrait of V. I. Lenin, Nelson A. Rockefeller asks that it be removed, Rivera refuses, the incident creates a furor in the art world, Rivera is paid in full and dismissed, his mural is destroyed the night of February 10 and its pieces carted away, Rivera uses the proceeds of the work to pay for the expenses of frescoes that he executes gratis for New York's New Workers School; Quetzelcoatl and the Old Order, The Legend of the Races, Stillborn Education, and Latin America by José Clemente Orozco for Dartmouth College.
Sculpture: The Palace at Four A.M. by Swiss sculptor-painter Alberto Giacometti, 31; Roverato by Italian sculptor-painter Marino Marini, 32; Cone of Ebony (mobile) by Alexander Calder.
Corning Glass executive Arthur A. (Amory) Houghton Jr., 26, takes over as president of the 30-year-old Steuben Glass Co. from its cofounder Frederick Carder, now 80. Corning acquired Steuben in 1918; under Houghton's direction it will produce clear, pure glass museum pieces, many of them designed by prominent artists.
Photographs: Paris de Nuit by Hungarian-born photographer Brassaï (originally Gyula Halasz), 34, includes "L'Avenue de l'Observatoire in Autumn" and creates an international sensation with its night shots of prostitutes, transvestites, and other nocturnal creatures of the Paris night. Born in the ancient city of Brasso, Brassaï has been in Paris since 1924, photographing for the art magazines Minotaure and Verve.
Theater: Design for Living by Noël Coward 1/24 at New York's Ethel Barrymore Theater, with Coward, Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, 135 perfs.; Alien Corn by Sidney Howard 2/20 at New York's Belasco Theater, with Katharine Cornell, 98 perfs.; The Enchanted (Intermezzo) by Jean Genet 2/27 at the Comédie des Champs-Elysées, Paris; Forsaking All Others by Edward Roberts and Frank Cavett 3/1 at New York's Times Square Theater, with Alabama-born actress Tallulah Bankhead, 30, Ilka Chase, Cora Witherspoon, 110 perfs.; Both Your Houses by Maxwell Anderson 3/6 at New York's Royale Theater, with Morris Carnovsky, Walter C. Kelly, Mary Philips, Jerome Cowan, Jane Seymour, Shepperd Strudwick in a polemic against political corruption, 120 perfs.; Men in White by New York-born playwright Sidney Kingsley, 27, 9/26 at New York's Broadhurst Theater, with Morris Carnovsky, Luther Adler, Elia Kazan, Sanford Meisner, Clifford Odets, East Cleveland-born actor Alan Baxter, 24, directed by Lee Strasberg, 367 perfs.; Ah, Wilderness by Eugene O'Neill (his only comedy) 10/2 at New York's Guild Theater, with George M. Cohan as Nat Miller, William Post, Jr., Elisha Cook, Jr., Gene Lockhart, Philip Moeller, Ruth Gilbert, 289 perfs.; The Pursuit of Happiness by Alan Child and Isabelle Louden 10/9 at New York's Avon Theater, with Peggy Conklin, Charles Waldron, 252 perfs.; Tovarich by French playwright Jacques Deval (Jacques Boularan), 42, 10/13 at the Théâtre de Paris, 800 perfs.; The Wind and the Rain by New Zealand-born playwright Marten (originally Horace Emerton) Hodge, 29, 10/18 at St. Martin's Theatre, London, with Mackenzie C. Ward, 30, Celia Johnson, 24 (to the Queen's Theatre 2/18/1935), 993 perfs.; Her Master's Voice by Clare Kummer 10/23 at New York's Plymouth Theater, with Laura Hope Crews, Roland Young, 224 perfs.; Mulatto by Langston Hughes 10/24 at New York's Vanderbilt Theater, with Rose McClendon, 270 perfs.; Mary of Scotland by Maxwell Anderson 11/27 at New York's Alvin Theater, with Helen Hayes, Helen Menken, Philip Merivale, George Coulouris, Cecil Holm, 248 perfs.; Tobacco Road by director-writer Jack Kirkland, 31, 12/4 at New York's Masque Theater, with Henry Hull as Jeeter Lester, Ashley Cooper, Indiana-born actor Will Geer, 31, Margaret Wycherly, in an adaptation of last year's Erskine Caldwell novel, 3,182 perfs.; Twentieth Century by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur 12/29 at New York's Broadhurst Theater, with Eugenie Leontovich as Lilly Garland, Moffat Johnston as Oscar Jaffe, Clare Woodbury, 152 perfs.
London's Old Vic Theatre engages Tunbridge Wells-born director (William) Tyrone Guthrie, 33. The youngest director in its history, Guthrie will work at the Old Vic off and on into the early 1950s.
Playwright-novelist John Galsworthy dies at London January 31 at age 65; Wilson Mizner of a heart ailment in his apartment at Hollywood's Ambassador Hotel April 3 at age 56 (he turned to writing screenplays 6 years ago with the advent of sound films); playwright Winchell Smith dies of cancer at Farmington, Conn., June 10 at age 61; theater architect and scenic designer Joseph Urban of a heart attack in his suite at New York's St. Regis Hotel July 10 at age 61; playwright-story writer Ring Lardner of a heart ailment in his sleep at his East Hampton, N.Y., home September 25 at age 48; actor Edward H. Sothern at New York October 28 at age 73.
Radio: Jack Armstrong the All-American Boy 7/31 on Chicago's KBBM with St. John Terrell, who is soon replaced by Jim Ameche. Creator of the show is Robert Hardy Andrews, its sponsor is the 9-year-old General Mills "Breakfast of Champions" Wheaties, and the theme song begins, "Wave the flag for Hudson High, boys/ Show them how we stand,/ Ever shall our team be champions,/ Known throughout the land" (to 6/28/1951); The Tom Mix Ralston Straightshooters 9/25 on NBC (cowboy actor Mix has no connection with the children's show except to lend his name)(to 6/23/1950); The Romance of Helen Trent 10/30 on CBS is a soap opera created by Anne Ashenhurst with E. Frank Hummert, whom she has known since 1927 and whom she will marry next year; Ma Perkins 12/4 on NBC is another Ashenhurst-Hummert creation, continuing the soap opera serial genre with daily 15-minute shows sponsored by Procter & Gamble's Oxydol. Actress Virginia Payne, 23, plays the title role that she will continue for 27 years (to 11/25/1960).
Sally Rand attracts thousands to the Chicago World's Fair that opens May 27 to celebrate "A Century of Progress." Originally named Harriet Helen Gould Beck, the 29-year-old Missouri-born fan dancer gets star billing at the "Streets of Paris" concession on the Midway, does a slow dance to Debussy's "Clair de Lune" wearing only her birthday suit but coyly using two pink, seven-foot ostrich plumes to conceal her nudity (she actually wears a body stocking or at least a coat of white theatrical cream). Her act draws the ire of community leaders, who call it "lewd, lascivious, and degrading to public morals," but Superior Judge Joseph B. David rules July 19 that "there is no harm and certainly no injury to public morals when the human body is exposed. Some people would probably want to put pants on a horse . . . Case dismissed for lack of equity." The five-foot-one-inch ecdysiast (measurements: 35-22-35) plays to packed houses, she will invent a bubble dance for next year's fair, using a 60-inch transparent balloon, and will be credited with making the fair a success as jobless Americans flock to Chicago in search of fun (attendance will total 22 million).
Films: Frank Lloyd's Cavalcade with Diana Wynyard (Dorothy Cox), 27, Clive Brook, Ursula Jeans; William Wyler's Counsellor-at-Law with John Barrymore, Bebe Daniels (Mrs. Ben Lyon); George Cukor's Dinner at Eight with Marie Dressler, John and Lionel Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, screenplay by Frances Marion; Leo McCarey's Duck Soup with the Marx Brothers; Frank Capra's Lady for a Day with May Robson (as "Apple Annie"), Warren William, Guy Kibbee in a plot based on a Damon Runyon story; George Cukor's Little Women with Katharine Hepburn, Joan Bennett, Frances Dee, Butte, Mont.-born actress Jean Parker (originally Luise-Stephanie Zelinska), 21, Paul Lukas; Alexander Korda's The Private Life of Henry VIII with English actor Charles Laughton, 34; René Clair's Quatorze Juillet (July Fourteenth) with Annabella; Rouben Mamoulian's Queen Christina with Greta Garbo, John Gilbert in a largely fictional version of the life of the 17th-century Swedish queen; Lowell Sherman's She Done Him Wrong with Mae West, now 41, as Diamond Lil ("Come up'n see me sometime"), Cincinnati-born actress Louise Beavers, 25, as her sassy maid Pearl, Cary Grant; Jean Vigo's Zero for Conduct (Zero de conduit) with Jean Daste, Robert le Flon. Also: Victor Fleming's Bombshell with Jean Harlow, Milwaukee-born actor William Joseph "Pat" O'Brien, 34, Frank Morgan, Louise Beavers; Marcel Pagnol's César with Raimu, Pierre Fresnay; Ernst Lubitsch's Design for Living with Gary Cooper, Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins; Stuart Walker's The Eagle and the Hawk with Fredric March, Cary Grant, Jack Oakie, Indiana-born actress Carole Lombard (originally Jane Alice Peters), 24; Gustav Machaty's Ecstasy with Viennese-born beauty Hedy (originally Hedwig Eva Maria) Kiesler (later Hedy Lamarr), 19, who creates a sensation with closeups of her face expressing erotic passion plus long shots that show her swimming in the nude and running naked through the woods; Wesley Ruggles's I'm No Angel with Mae West, Cary Grant; A. Edward Sutherland's International House with W. C. Fields, Peggy Hopkins Joyce, Stuart Erwin, George Burns, Gracie Allen; Michael Curtiz's The Kennel Murder Case with William Powell, Quincy, Ill.-born actress Mary Astor (originally Lucile Vascincellos Langhanke), 33; Frank Borzage's Man's Castle with Spencer Tracy, Salt Lake City-born actress Loretta (originally Gretchen) Young, 20; Robert Z. Leonard's Peg o' My Heart with Marion Davies, screenplay by Frances Marion; W. S. Van Dyke's Penthouse with Columbus, Ohio-born actor Warner Baxter, 44, Helena, Mont.-born actress Myrna Loy (originally Myrna Adele Williams), 28; William A. Seiter's Sons of the Desert with Laurel and Hardy; King Vidor's The Stranger's Return with Lionel Barrymore, Miriam Hopkins, Franchot Tone; John Cromwell's Sweepings with Lionel Barrymore, William Gargan; Fritz Lang's The Testament of Dr. Mabuse with Rudolf Klein-Rogge; Francis Martin's Tillie and Gus with W. C. Fields, Alison Skipworth, Baby LeRoy.
Twentieth Century Pictures is organized by Hollywood film producers who include Darryl Zanuck of Warner Brothers (see Twentieth Century Fox, 1935).
London-born journalist Sheila Graham (née Lily Shiel), 25, comes to New York and begins the syndicated gossip column "Hollywood Today" that will eventually appear in 180 newspapers, rivaling Louella Parsons (see 1925) and Hedda Hopper (see 1936). Married at age 17 to John Graham Gilliam, a man of 42 who encouraged her to perform in musical comedies, she debuted in the 1927 revue One Damned Thing after Another and has lately been writing theater articles for London periodicals (see Nonfiction, 1958).
Motion picture pioneer Lewis J. Selznick dies of a heart attack at his Beverly Hills home January 25 at age 62; Fatty Arbuckle of a heart attack at New York's Park Central Hotel June 29 at age 46 (three juries acquitted him of any wrongdoing in connection with the 1921 San Francisco scandal but bad publicity ended his career); Renée Adoree dies of tuberculosis at her Tujunga, Calif., home October 5 at age 35, having made 45 films between 1918 and 1930.
The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) is founded in September at a private men's club (The Masquers) in Los Angeles with a board of directors that includes James Gleason, Lucille Gleason, Ralph Morgan, and Alan Mowbray. The Guild's goal is to negotiate fair wages and working conditions for all performers, "from the highest-salaried star to the struggling extra." Actors' Equity tried to organize Hollywood performers in 1929 but had no success; Lew Ayres will join SAG in November of next year, the new group will gain American Federation of Labor (AFL) recognition in 1935, but the studios will not accept SAG's jurisdiction until 1937 and meanwhile will use detectives to sniff out members, who risk suspension.
The Screen Writers' Guild is organized at Hollywood's Roosevelt Hotel by Frances Marion and others to represent writers whose salaries have been cut by New York studio owners from $50 per week to $25. M-G-M pays Marion $3,000 per week, she and others set up headquarters at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Cherokee to begin a process of seeking protection for all writers under the new U.S. Labor Codes. But collective bargaining with the producers will not begin until 1939, the first Guild contract will not be signed until 1942, and in 1954 the Guild will become part of the Writers Guild of America (WGA).
New York's Radio City Music Hall gets a new lease on life as the Rockefellers hire Kansas City-born vaudeville and movie-house treasurer Gustav S. "Gus" Eyssell, 32 (see 1932). He transforms it from a vaudeville house to a movie palace, charging 35¢ until 1 o'clock, 50¢ in the afternoon, and 75¢ in the evening. The Music Hall will start booming next year when S. L. "Roxy" Rothafel brings over his high-kicking "Roxyette" chorus girls from the Roxy Theater and renames them "Rockettes" (the first such chorus line, they were organized at St. Louis by Russell Markert, now 33, in 1925 as the Sixteen Missouri Rockets; see 1978).
Hollywood musicals: Lloyd Bacon's 42nd Street with Warner Baxter, Bebe Daniels, Dick Powell, Nova Scotia-born dancer Ruby Keeler, 23, George Brent, music and lyrics by Al Dubin and Harry Warren, songs that include "Shuffle Off to Buffalo" and "You're Getting to Be a Habit with Me"; Mervyn LeRoy's Gold Diggers of 1933 with Dick Powell, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, choreography by Busby Berkeley, music and lyrics by Al Dubin and Harry Warren, songs that include "We're in the Money," "Shadow Waltz," "Remember Your Forgotten Man"; Raoul Walsh's Going Hollywood with Bing Crosby, Marion Davies, music by Nacio Herb Brown, lyrics by Arthur Freed, songs that include "Temptation"; Lloyd Bacon's Footlight Parade with James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, choreography by Busby Berkeley, music by Sammy Fain, lyrics by Irving Kahal, songs that include "By a Waterfall," "Honeymoon Hotel"; Thornton Freeland's Flying Down to Rio with Dolores Del Rio, Gene Raymond, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers (a new dance team, with Rogers doing everything that Astaire does except backwards, wearing high heels), choreography by Nashville, Tenn.-born dancer Hermes Pan (originally Panagiotopulos), 28, music by Vincent Youmans, lyrics by Gus Kahn and Edward Eliscu, songs that include "Carioca," "Orchids in the Moonlight," and the title song; Walt Disney's The Three Little Pigs (animated) with music and lyrics by Frank E. Churchill, songs that include "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" by Ann Ronell (Disney's animated Mickey Mouse character receives 800,000 fan letters).
Warner Brothers arranges with animated-film producer Leon Schlesinger to release his cartoons on a regular basis as showcases for the studio's large music library (see Looney Tunes, 1930). Having produced 39 Looney Tunes films (one per month), Schlesinger produces Merrie Melodies films (directed by Kansas City-born Disney veteran Fritz Frelung, 27) that compete with Disney's Silly Symphonies but are more adult in content. His animators Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising quit Schlesinger over a budget dispute and take their Bosko and Honey characters to M-G-M, where they make Happy Harmonies cartoons, but most of his staff will soon return, and he will build a staff of outstanding musicians and animators (see 1936).
Broadway musicals: Strike Me Pink 3/4 at the Majestic Theater, with Lupe Velez, Jimmy Durante, Hope Williams in a show backed by bootlegger Waxey Gordon with opening-night tickets priced as high as $25 (printed on gold stock), music by Ray Henderson, lyrics by B. G. DeSylva and Lew Brown, 105 perfs.; Murder at the Vanities 9/8 at the New Amsterdam Theater (to Majestic Theater 11/6), with Janet Abbott, James Rennie, Olga Baklanova, Frank Kingdon, Bela Lugosi, book by Earl Carroll (who makes a cameo appearance on stage) and Rufus King, music by Richard Myers, Victor Young, Herman Hupfeld, John J. Loeb, and others, lyrics by Edward Heyman, Ned Washington, Paul Francis Webster, and Hupfield, 207 perfs.; As Thousands Cheer 9/30 at the Music Box Theater, with Marilyn Miller, Clifton Webb, Ethel Waters, New York-born actor Jerome Cowan, 35, book by Irving Berlin and Moss Hart, music and lyrics by Berlin, Edward Heyman, and Richard Myers, songs that include "Easter Parade," 400 perfs.; Let 'Em Eat Cake by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind 10/21 at the Imperial Theater, with William Gaxton as John P. Wintergreen, Victor Moore as Alexander Throttlebottom, Philip Loeb, music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, 90 perfs.; Roberta (initially Gowns by Roberta) 11/18 at the New Ambassadors Theater, with Ray Middleton, George Murphy, Bob Hope, Fay Templeton, Tamara Geva, Sydney Greenstreet, book from the Alice Duer Miller novel, music by Jerome Kern, lyrics by Otto Harbach, songs that include "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," "The Touch of Your Hand," ("Lovely to Look At" will be added for a 1935 film version), 295 perfs.
Lyricist Adrian Ross dies at London August 10 at age 73.
Opera: Australian soprano Marjorie Lawrence, 24, makes her debut 2/25 at the Paris Opéra as Ortrud in the 1850 Wagner opera Lohengrin. She will be the only singer to ride a horse on stage, as Richard Wagner intended, in the finale of Die Götterdämmerung; Belarus-born soprano Jennie Tourel (Davidovich), 32, makes her Opéra-Comique debut in the title role of the 1875 Bizet opera Carmen (Tourel is an anagram based on Anna El-Tour, her teacher in Paris); Arabella 7/1 at Dresden's Staatsoper, with music by Richard Strauss, libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal.
Ballet: Les Presages (Destiny) 4/13 at Monte Carlo's Théâtre de Monte Carlo, with music by Petr Ilich Tchaikovsky, choreography by Leonide Massine.
First performances: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 2 by Béla Bartók 1/23 in a Frankfort radio broadcast; Concerto in C major for Two Pianos and Orchestra by Ralph Vaughan Williams 2/1 in a BBC broadcast; School for Scandal Overture by U.S. composer Samuel Barber, 23, 8/30 at Philadelphia's Robin Hood Dell; Concerto for Piano, Trumpet, and String Orchestra by Dmitri Shostakovich 10/15 at Leningrad; Charterhouse Suite by Vaughn Williams 10/21 at the Queen's Hall, London.
Stereoscopic sound fills Constitution Hall at Washington, D.C., April 27 as members and invited guests of the National Academy of Sciences hear music transmitted over wires from Philadelphia's Academy of Music while Leopold Stowkowski at Washington fiddles with the controls of three speakers (see 1932). EMI engineer Alan Blumlein receives a British patent for his monaural system June 14, it employs two widely spaced loudspeakers, and he will use it in January of next year to record a performance of Mozart's 1788 Symphony No. 41 in C major (Jupiter) conducted by