Coming to theaters near you!! The Great Gatsby, starring Leonardo DiCaprio in its latest iteration, opens this week. The story has been made into a movie at least four times, the first time in 1926 right after the book by F. Scott Fitzgerald was published in 1925. That, of course, was a black and white silent film, and no copies of it are known to have survived.
I’m planning to see the film as soon as possible. I think it’s another indication how much the public is interested in the Roaring Twenties. Think of the series “Boardwalk Empire,” and Ken Burns’s documentary “Prohibition.” And dress styles this year are highly reminiscent of the flapper dress, straight sheath lines with drop waists. I’ll bet this movie only heightens those stylistic elements.
No cover art yet, but I just received the title page design for my new mystery. Very art deco, in keeping with the Roaring Twenties setting. I love it!!
Ragtime music began in the 1890s. It was still around in the Roaring Twenties, although its popularity was on the wane. So I make minimal mention of it in my mysteries, using it as seasoning rather than as a main ingredient. Today, thanks to NPR’s classical music program, I learned where the term comes from. 
This style of music emphasizes the off beats, giving the music a ragged beat or ragged time. Hence, ragtime. Logical, sure, but I never put it together.
Douglas Fairbanks as Robin Hood
Seventy-three years ago today, on December 12, 1939, the movie screen’s first action hero died at the too-young age of 56. Because Douglas Fairbanks is a major character in my second mystery, I’ve read several biographies–enough to feel as if I almost knew him!
Fairbanks wrote, produced, directed, and starred in too many films for me to count. Most of them were silents, but he did transition to talkies in the late Twenties. With his wife, Mary Pickford, and his best friend, Charlie Chaplin, he founded United Artists, and he was the one who started the Oscars in 1929. Handsome and amazingly athletic for his day, he insisted on performing his own daring stunts, many of which he originated. They often seem trite today, but that’s because they were copied so often by others. When Douglas did the leaps onto horseback and the slides down a ship’s mainsail, audiences gasped. Not for nothing was he known as the King of Hollywood.
So how did he die? Fifty-six is hardly old age, even in the Thirties. Douglas was a strict teetotaler for much of his life and avoided the popular drugs like cocaine and heroin that permeated Hollywood. He exercised for several hours a day. But he backed off his active life in the movies, divorced Mary Pickford, and married a third time to an English model, Lady Sylvia Ashley, who made a career of marrying titles. He started drinking heavily. His more sedentary lifestyle caused a weight increase. He seemed to lose his zest for life. He became ill. He had a heart attack in bed and died the next day, shortly after uttering his now-famous last words, “I never felt better.”
Vaudeville performers were travelers. They seldom spent longer than one week in any one place. They usually moved on Sunday, the one day of the week that theaters were closed, and almost always traveled by train. Few performers owned cars.
This map gives you an idea of a typical year on a Big Time circuit. This was Bob Hope’s schedule for 1929, when he was a successful vaudeville performer, but before he had become famous.
Information like this is useful for my vaudeville characters. I can give them a schedule that was realistic rather than make up a bunch of cities. And I use Bob Hope as a minor character in my third book in the series, which is set in 1925.
Here’s some good news! The National Constitution Center in Philadelphia (on Independence Mall) is opening an exhibit called American Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, thanks to a grant from the NEH. Opening day is October 19 and the exhibit lasts until next April. After that it will tour many cities, including Seattle, WA; St. Paul, MN; St. Louis, MO; Austin, TX; and Grand Rapids, MI. (More to come, they say, and I hope there will be one close to me.) Read the entire (long) press release below.
The era of flappers and suffragists, bootleggers and temperance lobbyists, and real-life legends like Al Capone and Carry Nation will come vividly to life in the National Constitution Center’s world-premiere exhibition American Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition.
Spanning the dawn of the temperance movement in the early 1800s, through the Roaring Twenties, to the unprecedented repeal of a constitutional amendment during the Great Depression, this first comprehensive exhibition about Prohibition will explore America’s most colorful and complex constitutional hiccup. American Spirits will debut at the Center fromOctober 19, 2012 to April 28, 2013, before embarking on a nationwide tour.
The tour will extend into 2016, bringing the exhibition to cities across the country, including Seattle, WA; St. Paul, MN; St. Louis, MO; Austin, TX; and Grand Rapids, MI. [Complete tour schedule to be announced at a later date.]
American Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition is created by the National Constitution Center and curated by Daniel Okrent, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. Okrent collaborated with filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick on the documentaryProhibition, which aired on PBS in fall 2011.
“Prohibition left an indelible mark on America, redefining the role of the federal government and leaving its mark on everything from our personal habits to our tax policies,” said exhibition curator Daniel Okrent. “And though it may have been a wild card in our constitutional history, it came into being through the invention and deployment of political tactics and strategies still in play today.”
“American Spirits reveals the real stories behind hit dramas like HBO’s Boardwalk Empire and also provides timely perspectives on current constitutional debates about the government’s role in our lives,” said National Constitution Center President and CEO David Eisner. “From the ratification of the 18th Amendment to its repeal with the 21st Amendment, we can learn powerful lessons from this fascinating and politically charged story.”
The 5,000-square-foot exhibition will feature over 120 rare artifacts, including:
Interactive elements and immersive environments will bring to life the sights, sounds, and experiences of the time period. Wayne Wheeler’s Amazing Amendment Machine, a dazzling 20-foot-long, eight-foot-tall carnival-inspired contraption, will trace how the temperance movement culminated in the 18th Amendment. In addition, visitors can:
Visitors will have an opportunity at the end of the exhibition to explore the legacy of Prohibition in today’s regulatory landscape. Displays will show why and how laws differ from state to state and how the idea of drinking responsibly has evolved since the 1930s to reflect what we know about alcohol today.
To complement the exhibition, the Center is developing a variety of engaging activities and resource materials for students, teachers, and families that illuminate the amendment process, the role of liquor in American history, and the cultural revolution of the 1920s. Daniel Okrent, Ken Burns, and Lynn Novick will lend their voices and commentary to a special iPod audio tour that will guide visitors through the exhibition. Additionally, a theatrical performance – a hallmark of the Center’s exhibition experience – will take place inside the speakeasy. There, an actor playing the role of a bartender will explore the impact of the speakeasy on fashion, music, and culture during the Roaring Twenties.
A series of evening events and themed parties will further engage audiences in this colorful cultural moment. Guests ages 21+ can get a sneak peek of the exhibition prior to its public opening during the “Bootlegger’s Ball” on Thursday, October 18, 2012, when the Center’s Grand Hall Lobby will be transformed into a speakeasy complete with a live jazz band. Two additional parties are planned for Thursday, February 14, 2013 and Thursday, April 4, 2013.
The Center also is partnering with local businesses including Resorts Casino in Atlantic City, Sugar House Casino, Eastern State Penitentiary, and the Moshulu Restaurant on special themed packages for groups. Marketing and promotional support is provided by Philly Beer Week.
Admission to American Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition is $17.50 for adults, $16 for seniors and students, and $11 for children ages 4-12. Group rates also are available.
Last weekend, a group of us went to New York to see some Broadway plays, and we stayed at the Algonquin Hotel. I loved its historic status and its connection to the Roaring Twenties! Interestingly, while most hotels and restaurants in New York flouted the Prohibition laws and served liquor pretty openly, the Algonquin remained dry.
The Blue Bar
The hotel was built in 1902, but became famous in the Twenties when a distinguished group of literary men and women began meeting there almost daily for lunch. People like Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, Edna Ferber, F. Scott Fitgerald, and Ernest Hemingway,whose witty remarks are quoted on plaques on each room’s door. Our room had a quote from Dorothy Parker–a poem.
I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I’m under the table,
after four I’m under my host.
I walked around the entire tenth floor, reading the quotations on every door and laughing at most. If I need to use a hotel in my fourth Roaring Twenties mystery, some of which will take place in New York, I’ll certainly use the Algonquin to set the scene.
Here’s the famous “Round Table” where the writers and critics met. They called themselves the Vicious Circle.
Gloria Swanson and books, ca. 1920
I was shocked to learn about the scarcity of bookstores during the Roaring Twenties. People moan about Borders going under and lament the decline of the independent bookstore, but we still have far more places to buy books than people did in the Twenties. In the entire country of 123 million people, “there were only some four thousand places where a book could be purchased, and most of these were gift shops and stationary stores that carried only a few popular novels,” historian Kenneth C. Davis writes. “In reality, there were but five hundred or so legitimate bookstores that warranted regular visits from publishers’ salesmen . . . Of these five hundred, most were refined, old-fashioned ‘carriage trade’ stores catering to an elite clientele in the nation’s twelve largest cities.”
For comparison purposes, the population in 2010 was 309 million, and no one can estimate how many places there are where people can purchase a book. There are 15,872 public libraries in the US, Barnes & Noble alone has 1600 stores, and there are an estimated 2,000 independent bookstores. But how do you count all the Costco stores, grocery stores with book racks, WalMarts, and so forth? Suffice to say, people today have many, many more opportunities to buy or obtain books than they did in the Twenties, when middle class people outside the big cities had few options.
Before Prohibition, men and women almost never drank together. Most consumed alcoholic beverages–even those who didn’t think they were drinking were downing copious amounts of patent medicine which was largely made of alcohol–but they didn’t drink together. Men left the dining room table and congregated for drinks and smokes in another room, rejoining the ladies when they were through. It was universal pretense that women didn’t drink. 
But with the advent of the speakeasy and the beginning of women’s liberation in the Roaring Twenties, men and women started sharing the same space at parties. The saloon, once an all-male bastion, was declared illegal. It’s replacement, the illegal speakeasy, was open to all. Private gatherings, which had previously meant dinner parties, morphed into stand-up drinking occasions called cocktail parties that often didn’t include any food beyond nibbles. Men and women, married and single, gathered outside their home to drink cocktails, dance to the phonograph, and flirt. “Nobody stays home anymore,” said novelist Willa Cather in 1924.
So I make sure that, in my Roaring Twenties mysteries, Jessie (my main character) visits speakeasies and mingles with men. It doesn’t always turn out well. Like when she is looking for information about a certain suspect and gets attacked by a drunken lout. Here’s an excerpt:
Henry scanned the room, his eyes passing over me without a flicker of recognition, and when he saw that none of the larger tables was empty, he approached the center one and emptied it with a scram motion of his thumb. Henry and his associates called to the bartender for drinks. The guy knew what to bring without being told. Ah, the advantages of regular patronage.
They were loud, but not loud enough for me to make out more than the stray word or two. Curious, I nursed my drink and watched from the wings. Henry sat facing me from the far side of the table, tipping back on his chair legs, smoking one cigarette after another as he tossed off snide remarks that were received with raucous laughter by his minions. David was the only one not laughing. I had a profile view of him as he leaned forward from the edge of his seat, his hands clasped around a mug of ale, staring glumly at the foam.
As I watched, he said something to Henry, who frowned, took out his wallet, and handed him several bills. David pocketed the money and stood up, made a curt farewell, and disappeared up the stairs.
Which, now that I’d gotten what I came for, was exactly what I needed to do. I motioned to the bartender that I was leaving, and fished through my purse for a dollar. Suddenly there was a tough standing over me.
Markie’s was obviously not the first bar he’d seen this evening. He swayed a little, and his words were slurred, but he was not yet blotto. I realized with dismay that he was one of Henry’s party.
“Ev’ning, dollface. What’s a looker like you sitting all alone for? Come join us and I’ll buy you a glass of bubbly.” His friends were watching, all of them, to see what luck he would have. I wasn’t overly concerned. The light was dim and my costume, wig, and makeup were good enough that I would feel comfortable speaking directly to Henry without fear he would recognize me. Still, Shakespeare had it right, discretion is the better part of valor.
“Thank you, but I need to meet my husband at the theater in a few minutes.” I folded the dollar under my glass and stood.
“Husband, eh? Well, now, that’s one lucky man, that husband,” he sneered, grabbing my arm with his rough fingers. “I think he should spread his luck around a little, eh dollface?” I twisted away from his grasp as I threw what was left of my drink in his face. He sputtered with rage.
I crossed the room toward the stairs, weaving through several patrons. The boozehound shoved them aside as he followed. Suddenly he crashed to the floor, tripped by an outstretched foot that a gentleman at another table had kindly extended on my behalf. He sprawled messily, and I made my escape into the night.
Markie’s was two blocks from the main strip, and the street was quiet. The cold air tasted fresh and clean after the thick smoke in the bar. The corners were dark—no streetlights in this part of town. No place for a girl alone, I thought, heading toward an intersection where a gaslight beckoned. Behind me, the door to Markie’s slammed shut. A glance over my shoulder told me my suitor had been down but not out.
Anger at his humiliation trumped inebriation. I bolted for the gaslight but my ridiculous shoes slowed me down, and before I could put any distance between us, he was on me. He snatched at me and got a handful of rabbit stole which I immediately released, but not soon enough to avoid being slung into the gutter, tearing a hole in my dress with my knee. I swung backward hard with my elbow, hoping to hit something vulnerable. I heard him scream, but oddly enough, my arm hit only air.
Someone had lifted the goon off me and a familiar voice drawled, “This man bothering you, lady?”
Long before Prohibition, women feeling unwell had sought relief in Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound, a patent medicine. Made of 21% alcohol, it certainly provided a big swig of relief! There weren’t many vegetables in Ms. Pinkham’s miracle compound, but each bottle had the equivalent of almost 8 ounces of 80-proof whiskey, enough to make a patient feel high or even drunk. 
The odd thing is, Ms. Pinkham was a temperance devotee, but maybe making money trumped personal preferences.
I’ve been interested in these patent medicines because one of my characters is a bootlegger and in the third book of the series, he runs a scam at a drug store that involves medicinal alcohol. His scheme is to capitalize on the ability of doctors, dentists, and even vets, to write prescriptions for liquor if it was intended for medicinal use. I did not make this up! I didn’t need to–people in the Roaring Twenties came up with hundreds of ways to work the system and get legal prescriptions for alcohol. 
