Collector's Item: #11 Readjusted Lives and Unrepaired Faucets 1939-1950

You know kind of hate to see the whole thing come down been hanging there ever since the Alumni Club gave it to us 15th anniversary that's a long time ago yes you're telling me you know I don't mind removing your soul we haven't any other place to put our new Grandma Moses Prince well I guess that's true that's the last argument but let me be nostalgic once in a while really I don't blame you you know with all the things you collected about America who are the well before were flushed out in tears let's hang the new praying about this charlie Phyllis it is nice isn't it what of Grandma Moses early painting she called it the checkered house you know for a gal who didn't start painting and until she was 78 she didn't do so badly primitive good choice of words history it was a return to primitive painting well they're painted I'm anxious to see okay I think these new catches will hold it all right I know always every time a truck Hey oh yeah nice much nicer than this stick Oh woman how can you speak so disparagingly of the sinking of the good ship Merrimack well Rose you want me save the frames well borrow me at least take the frame I don't know what if she doesn't like about that old Merrimack Franklin you can't always offer your woman anyway I kind of like that the Grandma Moses painting we just hung don't you and she was painting at just about the time I'd like to talk to you about that right after the Second World War a really big period of adjustment let's just stop and think a moment about the years 1945 through 1950 we had a new president Harry Truman we had the atom bomb the hydrogen bomb and VE Day and VJ Day the mobilization formation of the United Nations and labor strikes and inflation then shortages we had the 80th Congress with the Republican Party thoroughly controlling both houses and the Democratic Party in the White House and we had the cold war against communism he had a communist scare right here at home we had the Berlin Airlift we watched the Communist war in China grow until in 1950 we saw the little country of Korea split wide open in civil war and soon we were fighting once again this time with the United Nations army that was a pretty big dose of chaos for five years wouldn't you say years of turbulent unrest years when we were looking for a normal way of life once again but failing to find it so it's not hard to understand it by a wave of abstract art should sweep across the country you've become the dominant heart movement in America our artists of the 40's claimed that the regionalists of a decade ago had concentrated too much attention on the physical side of man and they felt a need to examine his faults and emotions and paint their impressions of them so this abstract art was really a search for new forms and a look way deep inside of Americans into the subconscious really another thing abstract art was international artists all over the world were painting in the same style and our artists just as the rest of us they rejected that America only the feeling after the war so they started painting in the style of internationalism that we found in the formation of the United Nations well whatever the reasons Americans suddenly found themselves flooding with all sorts of artistic styles I'd like to show you some of them and try to tell you what the artist had in mind let me get a few of these prints right here now this is the syndicate the work of Jack Levine some people disagree with his ideas but few doubt his ability you hear me began his Odyssey for moderns in the early dark months of the war it shows a featureless lost person trying to win a beachhead for tomorrow and this man in George Brutus painting the wanderer represents the human spirit wandering through a dark world for fucking folks but does not know will be a light and sunny day then Shaun's war poster Conger shows a boy with face made old before its time and an outstretched empty hand realistically depicts the tragedy of war and Philip ever good is intensely concerned with what is happening to the world his orderly retreat shows that he paints the horrors of law and the tears of the people with his very soul Abraham Ratner's City still life there it personally expresses his outrages of monstrous behavior old man Ragnar maintained that an artist should be true to the emotions of his soul Morris Graves is a realist his symbolic realism is what gives his very small birds singing in the moonlight it's moving bravery in the lonely nighttime well these abstractionism or wasn't all was happening in the art field during the forties remember during the first war how so many of our artists were part of the creel committee and as such were working together to produce war posters well during this war is there wasn't as much organized government support but the magnificent work was done by our artists and many of them won their first recognition through their war work here let me kill you some of these posters many Americans first came to know Joseph Hirsch through the GIS on his warbound posters and Harold layman has won fame as both a painter and a sculptor and Norman Rockwell's powerful posters were known throughout the land few people seeing them could help but respond well there was something else too the ponies were known to our artists as the pepsi-cola forties the pizza Kohler Company you see held a nationwide contest in 1944 which drew over 5000 entries now the important thing about this was that it marked the emergence of a new patron of the art business more and more large industries began commissioning artists to paint for them began collecting famous American artworks and this was true of the labor unions to the public acceptance and understanding of modern art really boomed during the 40s and in answer to this Art Museum sprang up all over the country I've got some pictures of a couple of them right here in these prints yeah misfire as usual I suppose I should have them under architecture but anyway here they are this one is the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC and it was established by Andrew Mellon in 1939 and it's magnificent collections of art draw thousands of visitors and this is the Cranbrook Museum of Art at Bloomfield Hills Michigan it was designed by Eliel Saarinen as part of a whole series of buildings which comprise the Cranbrook school now these buildings represent the two ends of the scale of course one is the classical design and the other is of the very recent modern trend both were completed in the early forties or perhaps a little before oh yes dear Oh Oh just a minute please now what was that again dear is it dripping again decidedly yes well I'll have to get one of those rubber washers and fix it in the meantime I hope the dripping doesn't bother you too much I'm not going to let it no in fact I think I'll just stay just sit down strike right here until you do something about it well in that case in order to preserve the neutrality and maintain the peace I better come up no I was just browsing through some pictures and prints of some art Oh some of those built along the early 40s no before and as I remember the only thing is built during the war were factories and homes for defenseless well there were other things there but as long as you're going to stage a sit-down strike until I fix the faucet anyway you might as well come down make yourself comfortable and we look at some pictures sometime before we get out of the house well that reassures me I'll get the book on architecture now you hold the book and I will have live a few choice comments as we go along well now that you pinned me down it has been done before well now if you were we're that couple world you wouldn't have to worry about a dripping faucet does look cramped after our big kitchen up today there is a little difference isn't there well here look at this one well that looks as though they were the only ones living in trailers I was to give the comment Oh my humble apology is my dear enough I look at the pictures and noodlebib that's a deal now this is a picture of a trailer camp in the first years of the war and even then conditions were very overcrowded because the building the housing shortage was very acute around the war industry centers in the army bases speed became the password and temporary buildings and barracks were quickly built to house the Army and Navy forces overseas and to house workers who converged on factory centers and shipyards a new method of building known as prefabrication started the sections of these buildings were prepared separately and then they would be brought together the building would take shape in a very short time the average cost for these defense houses was from three to five thousand dollars over a hundred architectural firms were assigned housing projects now some of these houses were more permanently planned and adaptiveness surrounding areas while other forms were developed to be used on a more temporary basis as for instance the Quonset hut and you know after many times the native materials and woods were used to building small holes that was very interesting Howard then I kept trying so it's appreciated but I do have a question asked oh well let's have it well no that's all the factories and these are homeless for defense workers being built so quickly did the officer takes have time to do anything in the way of planning oh yes all during the war there was a lot of planning in in anticipation of future needs oh yes I suppose they did do a lot of thinking about what they would like to build after the Lord yeah of course even during the war there were many things built that were quite worthy of note here let's look at a few more pictures now you watch the pictures and I guess we understand each other well for that you may tweak my chief now let's get all of these nonsense here know the works of the leading architect before you yes that's right well thank you for bringing me up to date now on with the pictures now the new building shapes taking place were particularly significant in Racine Wisconsin Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture was shown in his Johnson wax company buildings the walls were bricked lined with cork and concrete and sealed against fire noise and dirty and the heating of the space inside was synchronized with the movement of the Sun but challenging rightful world leadership in architecture was Eliel Saarinen in collaboration with other architects he designed the Des Moines Art Center whose buildings show simplicity of Lyon and a balanced spatial relationship in Chicago Mies van der Rohe built his first buildings in the United States at the Illinois Institute of Technology and this is the Terrace Plaza Hotel in Cincinnati designed by Skidmore Owings and Merrill sculpture painting and architecture are integrated to make it a structure of beauty the late 1940 saw the headquarters of the United Nations being built on Manhattan's East Side new methods of construction came about during these post-war years and the UN building was not to be excluded in fact that we not only shouldn't exclude available words of wisdom by their words of wisdom you know I almost feel tempted to tweak more about the United Nations okay do you recall the conference in San Francisco in 1945 when the Charter was signed oh yes everyone was filled with hope and optimism but my short time at last yes are sadly true the UN ran into problems right off the bat America was having her share of problems to noise that's true doctor I was thinking about that just a little bit ago all the things that were happening to us right after the war there you remember that rash of strike the recall strikes steel strikes telephone one strike and you know hard it just seemed that every time labor asked for and got an increase in wages why our prices whether they said just what happened of course it was all part of a cycle you see after the war this time we didn't just plunge off into a depression he just kept flies or expending yes you know the way they took the price controls off everything except rent things were expensive that's right but of course it affected labour the same way they had to pay the same prices as everyone else so they just struck for more money when they got it for their employer just completely added that to increase to the cost of this product so we were off when I gave it an inflationary ride you realize that in 1947 that food prices were double what they were in 39 but really how and I can appreciate well there was good cause for us as a nation doing expending all this money we were fighting a cold war mainly took a lot of money to operate that Marshall Plan and the lamblia in America was trying to hold back communism all over the world how about right here at home remember all those investigations that started right after the war do I remember though I am a college professor I may be very well metier they shall we be seated ourselves upon yon couch I'm sure it will be very soft oh well I know it'll be much more comfortable than this what would change by something I'm going to get you a new chair Howard that one kind of needs a little reef stuffing or something the pillows no the horsehair allele adequately now what would you like to talk about now what would you like to talk about but then you have shamed me so we shall proceed to America and her artists such as the théâtre oh yeah like my brain will see if I can't think of something to contribute to this conversation well the titties were crowded with louver keys had a lot of money to spend the ticket prices soared soon it was quite normal to see long long lines of people waiting to buy tickets well it was but it didn't last very long see right after the war the theater was facing the very serious competition of television nd been fighting for their financial life ever seen what type of plays were they doing on Broadway then well there were a lot of them of course I imagine that thee the most successful reserving berlin's this is the army you know the entire cast was composed of serviceman that was just like you yep yep yep yeah of course there were a lot of other plays - war plays there was the winged victory and mr. Roberts and the command decision and watch on the Rhine yes very good plays you see if there wasn't the rush to just get anything about the war on to the stage like we had after the first war and as a result we had better plays a lot of fine musical students well you know with all the servicemen on leave it was a big audience first well just a nice show that was fun and that just described the musical they kind of dominated the theatrical world and 40 is hard do you remember these wonderful songs in Oklahoma oh yeah yeah now there was one popular musical it made the ballet quite popular to that show no wonder Agnes DeMille did the choreography that's right she's a very important person in the history of modern ballet yes very much so you see she proved that the choreography that is the dance part of the show could bring out the plot and carry the story along well to an extent but not to the limits reached in Oklahoma that was one show along with many others that showed how the the dancer and the writer and the producer could blend their arts into a successful production well I can see how there would need to be a lot of cooperation in producing Oklahoma you know those great pitches where dancers and ballets but he took up almost the entire state they speaking of the mill didn't she do the choreography for other successful musicals during the party oh yes and this was about the time that the Ballet Theatre was established in New York very important development in American Ballet she did a lot of the dances for that group too you know hard regice talking about Agnes de Mille and the little bird told me that there were some very successful male dancers about that time yes a little bird told you but anyhow I do remember your own robins about that time well you have some very accurate informants feathered or otherwise and did they also tell you that he P he produced the fancy-free and that Michael kid became very distinguished is a choreographer when he produced his own stage oh no my little birds don't go into a lot of detail oh no no they didn't mention anything about the movie dancing social dancing nothing except staged ballet oh my have you talked to the bees about this well they would have assured you that the Jitterbugs had their heyday that after the war the square dancer swept the country and then Latin American dances became very popular not to mention revival the charm the fastest no what were you thinking about dancing in the movie I didn't say what I would have said however was that the late 1940s saw the introduction of these big movie ballets tomatoes I forgot all about the process it's it's lucky I didn't put the stopper in the sink we'd be floating around maybe we should call the Iowa naveen get some life preservers up here I forgot another swim very soon I just have to get some more notes together for my final exam next week that'll be right up okay so the exact faucet gets the dripping to load again I'm going to call you you just give me the old SOS and I'll be right there I've been looking through some notes here on the movies of the 1930s remember I told Esther that the movie industry had done quite a bit for it making the ballet popular but it was doing a lot more than that in the 1940s as it had been doing since its beginnings the movie industry was commenting on the times trying to help man understand the world in which he lived well I say that with some qualifications of course because there were a great many movies made of which were just used as a means of escape from social problems for people and many of the social problems were misrepresented him sentimentalized but there's no doubt about the power of the movies held in the 1940s the films could start new styles fair set up new attitudes and be used as propaganda tool they were a very useful device for our armed services here I have a picture here look at this one look at these fellows the moving picture was a common device for building the morale of our soldiers overseas very often the troops sat in the open like this maybe in a driving rain watching a film of someone choking in the desert well many of these guys had come to service from service schools where films were used to train them do everything from firing a gun to overcoming malaria fire or fear and on the homefront people working in defense plants had to be taught how to operate unfamiliar machines and the movies just fit in fine for that purpose the makers of documentary films did much to aid the war effort - several pictures were made often they were used as a means of controlling and directing public opinion I compiled a little list of them here when you use them in that final exam if I ever get it ready for next week here why we fight was made to be shown to soldiers and bomber at a running commentary written by Carl Sandburg the documentary at its very best was shown in Louisa rush Marx and Edward Steichen pictures the fighting lady this was the story of an aircraft carrier then the army released Memphis Belle a movie about a flying fortress in action well these are just some of the more noteworthy ones then when the war was finished and the boys started coming home the movies turned to the readjustment problem the boys faced and one such movie was called the best years of our lives remember that toward the close of the decade America saw a group of films dealing with psychological melodrama you may recall such titles as spellbound and Snakepit well let's get on with our discussion of the trends in moviemaking after the war the movies went right along with the inflation ride but then a threat loomed over the movie industry the same threat that was hanging over radio you probably guessed ivory referring to television now this industry was you might imagine quite a novelty at first and here was the appeal of sight and sound right in the privacy of your own living room and that could cause quite an impact the television in the 1940s was still new techniques needed to be improved as to programming in presentations before the new element could take its place as an art form well that just about completes my notes up to date guess I'm almost set to prepare that final test for the semester gonna be a tough one doing well right now though believe Esther is waiting patiently up there for my plumbing abilities to blossom forth put a how long she's gonna tolerate that leaky faucet machine though I'd better gather me up some pipe wrenches and get up there and get at it