Representing Queerness: Clifton Webb on the American Stage

2011 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 539-558
Author(s):  
LEONARD J. LEFF
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
American Theater ◽  
The Road ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Show Business ◽  
Gossip Columns ◽  
Daily Paper ◽  
Star Text ◽  
Entertainment Culture

AbstractIn the American theater of the 1930s and 1940s, the designation “queer star” was an oxymoron – except when applied to Clifton Webb. The Indiana-born singer and dancer was (according to colleagues) homosexual and (according to critics and audiences) queer. He was also, after 1932, a star on Broadway and the road as well as a reliably queer presence in the gossip columns and arts pages of the daily paper. Unlike any other show business personality of his rank, he used his star text to raise the visibility of queerness in early twentieth-century entertainment culture.

The first traffic accidents involving cars in Kharkiv in the early twentieth century (based on materials from the local press)

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
High Speed ◽  
Internal Combustion Engines ◽  
Road Accidents ◽  
The Road ◽  
Road Users ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Car Accidents ◽  
On The Road

Research aim is to establish the history of the first road accidents involving cars in Kharkiv in the early twentieth century. Research methodology. The article discusses the road accidents involving cars as one of the aspects of the emergence and development of new vehicles and ways of communication "traffic" in Kharkov in the early twentieth century from the point of view of the concept of modernization of urban space. Scientific novelty. For the first time in the historiography the history ofthe road accidents involving cars in Kharkov in the early twentieth century was the subject of special research. The publications from the newspapers «Yuzhnyj Kraj» («South Land») and «Utro» («Morning») newspapers revealed a number of testimonies of the first car accidents involving cars in Kharkiv in the early 20th century. The typical causes, circumstances, course and consequences of such incidents are established. Conclusions. It was found that the first car accidents were caused primarily by the unusualness of the new vehicle for traditional road users in time pedestrians, carriages and, especially, horses, which frightened the unusual view and high speed of automatic crews, the roar of their previous engines, known as time of movement of smoke and smoke, loud exhausts, internal combustion engines and various horns and even «sirens». Factors such as the poor quality of driver training and / or the irresponsibility of individual drivers when driving on city streets also played an important role in some cases. The most known example of dangerous behavior on the road was the case of a nobleman O. L. Samoilov (owner and driver of the infamous newspaper «Red Car»), who regularly consciously ensures the safety of road users. This has led to frequent road accidents involving schoolchildren of varying severity from other road users  people, animals (horses, dogs) and vehicles. At the same place on carriages and features of pedestrians who are accustomed to traffic on city streets. For a long time, they did not report the changes caused by the appearance of dozens of cars on the streets of Kharkiv and neglected their own safety, behaving carelessly.

The Road to Armageddon

2020 ◽  
pp. 17-42
Author(s):  
John W. Compton
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Child Labor ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
The United States ◽  
Group Leaders ◽  
The Road ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Dynamic

This chapter examines the social and theological underpinnings of the large Protestant membership groups that helped build support for major Progressive Era reforms, including child labor restrictions, maternal health programs, and prohibition. It argues that the three factors were particularly important in motivating progressive religious activism in the early twentieth century. The first was the revival of a strand of Protestant social thought that stretched back to the Puritans—a prophetic tradition built on the interconnected ideas of stewardship, providential duty, and collective accountability for sin. The second was the sect dynamic observed by the sociologist Max Weber during his early twentieth-century visit to the United States—a social dynamic that incentivized upwardly mobile citizens to seek membership in Protestant churches and membership groups while also endowing church and group leaders with considerable influence over the beliefs and behaviors of their members. The third was the rise of an ecumenical infrastructure that promoted cooperation between elite reformers and average citizens, and also between believers of different social and denominational backgrounds.

Romantic Motorists, Romantic Cyclists

2020 ◽  
pp. 119-154
Author(s):  
Saeko Yoshikawa
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Free Movement ◽  
Lake District ◽  
The Road ◽  
Literary Tourism ◽  
Self Reliance ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Bodily Sensations

Chapter 4 investigates how and why the motorcar attracted George Dixon Abraham, James John Hissey and other early motorists, and explores how they adopted and adapted the poetics and aesthetics of Romantic writers, including Wordsworth and Shelley, in describing their new mobilised perceptions and bodily sensations as they hurried through changing weather and scenery, attempting inaccessible mountain passes and dizzying descents. As motor cars gradually replaced horse-drawn vehicles, and the speed of travel increased in the pre-War period, the pursuits of a more leisurely literary tourism gradually declined. At the same time, motorists were finding their own ways of enjoying the country roads, free movement and self-reliance, which was impossible for railway passengers. Likewise, intrepid bicyclists, such as Fitzwater Wray, relished their mobility and self-dependence as they toured in the Lake District in the early twentieth century. The chapter reveals how the Romantic ethos of oneness with nature, freedom of wayfaring and personal independence were revitalized in early motorists’ and cyclists’ poetics of the road.

“The Song They Sing Is the Song of the Road”

Transfers ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Walter
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Travel Writing ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
The Road ◽  
Spatial Practice ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Changing Attitudes ◽  
Static Nature

When, in the early twentieth century, British middle-class writers went on a tour in search of their country, travel writing not only saw the re-emergence of the home tour, but also the increasing appearance of the motorcar on British roads. With the travelogue playing the role of a discursive arena in which debates about automobility were visualized, the article argues that, as they went “in search of England,” writers like Henry Vollam Morton and J. B. Priestley not only took part in the ideological framing of motoring as a social practice, but also contributed to a change in the perception of accessing a seemingly remote English countryside. By looking at a number of contemporary British travelogues, the analysis traces the strategies of how the driving subjects staged their surroundings, and follows the authors' changing attitudes toward the cultural habit of traveling: instead of highlighting the seemingly static nature of the meaning of space, the travelogues render motoring a dynamic and procedural spatial practice, thus influencing notions of nature, progress, and tradition.

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