To Catch a Joke Thief, or Copyrighting Vaudeville Acts in the New York Clipper Registry

2021 ◽  
pp. 174837272110292
Author(s):  
Matthew Joseph McMahan
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Dramatic Performance

In the early part of the twentieth century, the trade publication the New York Clipper created a way for vaudeville artists to claim priority over acts, songs, plays, jokes, and even concepts. The initiative tells us a great deal about the limited legal options facing vaudevillians at the time period as well as the dubious nature of codifying non-dramatic performance acts as clearly defined, own-able, and protectable intellectual property. Drawing on newspaper clippings from Billboard, Variety, and the New York Clipper, as well as rare documents from the American Comedy Archives, this paper offers a look at the American press’s attempt to intervene. It also provides an exploration of a number of rare jokes, gags, novelty acts over which vaudevillians claimed exclusive rights. Ultimately, if the newspapers could not actually protect the performers, they did manage to preserve acts that would otherwise be lost in history.

Balanchine, George (1904–1983)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy Reynolds
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
York City ◽  
Violin Concerto ◽  
Classical Dance ◽  
George Balanchine ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Classical Ballet

George Balanchine (Georgii Melitonovich Balanchivadze), arguably the greatest ballet choreographer of the twentieth century, was at once both modernist and traditionalist. Unlike many radical innovators, in charting new ground he did not reject the past. Virtually all of his major works make reference, even if obliquely, to the classical ballet technique in which he was trained. Although born in Russia and active in Europe in the early part of his career, it was in America that he made his greatest impact, directing the New York City Ballet, which he co-founded with Lincoln Kirstein, from its inception in 1948 until his death in 1983. During this time, the company grew from modest beginnings to become one of the most important ballet troupes in the world. Balanchine is credited with creating a particularly American style of classical dance, one that is characterized by speed, precision, energy, daring, and a rough grace more associated with athletes than with sylphs. His more than 400 dance works include Apollo (1928), Serenade (1934), Concerto Barocco (1941), Le Palais de cristal (later renamed Symphony in C) (1948), Orpheus (1948), The Nutcracker (1954), Agon (1957), Symphony in Three Movements (1972), Stravinsky Violin Concerto (1972), Vienna Waltzes (1977), Ballo della Regina (1978), and Mozartiana (1981).

Jack Kirby

2018 ◽  
pp. 191-205
Author(s):  
Andrew Alan Smith
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
New York City ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Real World ◽  
York City ◽  
Background Information ◽  
East Side ◽  
Alter Ego

Ben “The Thing” Grimm of the Fantastic Four is portrayed as a working-class “guy,” despite the vast amount of money at his disposal as a principal in Fantastic Four, Inc. However, his origins go back further than his first appearance in 1961, to the childhood of his co-creator and original artist, Jack Kirby. Kirby, a working-class Jew from the slums of Lower East Side New York City in the early part of the twentieth century, patterned Grimm after himself. Even after both Kirby and cocreator Stan Lee left Fantastic Four, successive writers and artists would include new pieces of background information about the character cementing the direct correlation between the fictional Thing and his real-world creator and alter ego, Jack Kirby.

scholarly journals Review Article: Souls, Hearts and Heritage: Passing from the Danube to the Hudson. Szegedy-Maszák, Marianne. 2013. I Kiss Your Hands Many Times – Hearts, Souls and Wars in Hungary. New York: Spiegel & Grau, Random House. 345 pp; and Griesz, Katherine. 2012. From the Danube to the Hudson. Seattle, WA: CreateSpace Independent Publishing. 482 pp.

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 21-27
Author(s):  
Evi Blaikie
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Review Article ◽  
World War ◽  
Independent Publishing ◽  
Time Period ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Rich

How did the rich and the super-rich Hungarian Jews in Budapest fare during the 1930s, World War II and the Holocaust, and beyond? Two new books deal with their stories: Marianne Szegedy-Maszák's "I Kiss Your Hands Many Times" and Katherine Griesz's "From the Danube to the Hudson". Szegedy-Maszák was able to use her journalist's profession and skills to explore and vividly present her family's story in a work that can likewise satisfy the historians, the romantics and all those who like a “good read.” Griesz’s epic family memoir encompasses the same time period and topic as Szegedy-Maszák's book in its portrayal of a multi-generational Hungarian Jewish family's fate in the crisis -full mid-twentieth century, as seen and interpreted by its female descendant decades later.

scholarly journals The Sunshine State In Color : The Autochromes Of Charles Zoller

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Selina Lamberti
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
The State ◽  
Color Images ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Upstate New York ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Popular Images

Charles C. Zoller (1856-1934) was prolific photographer and native of Rochester, New York. His archive is held at George Eastman International Museum of Photography and Film and consist of over 8,000 photographic objects, just under 4,000 of which are autochrome plates. This thesis focuses on the approximately 317 Zoller autoochromes of Florida that make up a small fraction of the fonds This thesis furthermore considers the visual representatin of Florida in color in the early twentieth century and compares tropes in this imagery to Zoller's representation of the Sunshine State. Traveling and photographing extensively in North America and Europe, Zoller produced both color images with Lunière Autochrome plates and black-and-white images with various photographic products. Upon return to Upstate New york, Zoller gave lectures on a variety of topics, illustrating these lectures with projected autochromes and lantern slides. Since there are few know autochromes of Florida, Zoller's series are some of the earliest examples of color photographs of the state. While Zoller's images are often predictable representations of Florida, they nevertheless provide a window into how Florida was presented in the early part of the last century. This thesis compares Zoller's autochromes to other popular images of Florida in that time.

scholarly journals The Sunshine State In Color : The Autochromes Of Charles Zoller

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Selina Lamberti
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
The State ◽  
Color Images ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Upstate New York ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Popular Images

Charles C. Zoller (1856-1934) was prolific photographer and native of Rochester, New York. His archive is held at George Eastman International Museum of Photography and Film and consist of over 8,000 photographic objects, just under 4,000 of which are autochrome plates. This thesis focuses on the approximately 317 Zoller autoochromes of Florida that make up a small fraction of the fonds This thesis furthermore considers the visual representatin of Florida in color in the early twentieth century and compares tropes in this imagery to Zoller's representation of the Sunshine State. Traveling and photographing extensively in North America and Europe, Zoller produced both color images with Lunière Autochrome plates and black-and-white images with various photographic products. Upon return to Upstate New york, Zoller gave lectures on a variety of topics, illustrating these lectures with projected autochromes and lantern slides. Since there are few know autochromes of Florida, Zoller's series are some of the earliest examples of color photographs of the state. While Zoller's images are often predictable representations of Florida, they nevertheless provide a window into how Florida was presented in the early part of the last century. This thesis compares Zoller's autochromes to other popular images of Florida in that time.

Shaping Jazz

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Damon J. Phillips
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Recording Industry ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Long Run

There are over a million jazz recordings, but only a few hundred tunes have been recorded repeatedly. Why did a minority of songs become jazz standards? Why do some songs—and not others—get re-recorded by many musicians? This book answers this question and more, exploring the underappreciated yet crucial roles played by initial production and markets—in particular, organizations and geography—in the development of early twentieth-century jazz. The book considers why places like New York played more important roles as engines of diffusion than as the sources of standards. It demonstrates why and when certain geographical references in tune and group titles were considered more desirable. It also explains why a place like Berlin, which produced jazz abundantly from the 1920s to early 1930s, is now on jazz's historical sidelines. The book shows the key influences of firms in the recording industry, including how record labels and their executives affected what music was recorded, and why major companies would re-release recordings under artistic pseudonyms. It indicates how a recording's appeal was related to the narrative around its creation, and how the identities of its firm and musicians influenced the tune's long-run popularity. Applying fascinating ideas about market emergence to a music's commercialization, the book offers a unique look at the origins of a groundbreaking art form.

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