Travel Thursday – The Great New York

Written by Louise Cowan, Trainee Liaison Librarian

Front cover of The Great New York - Pennell (1911)

The Great New York – Pennell (1911)

One of the world’s top tourist destinations, New York has been attracting travellers for many years.  This week’s Travel Thursday looks at the Big Apple from two uniquely different perspectives; that of a poet and that of an artist.

Australian born critic and poet, W.J. Turner (1889-1946) moved to London to pursue writing in 1907 and alongside friend, Siegfried Sassoon, became a member of the Georgian poets group when his work was published as part of a Georgian Poet anthology (Hawkes, 2004).  Turner visited New York in the 1920s and penned a short travelogue detailing his time there, giving his thoughts on the city and all manner of related topics including, the wonderful character of American women, the Americanisation of Europe and advice on the perfect piece of luggage, the American trunk:

a trunk which stands upright, can be pushed along on rollers, fits in beside the driver of a taxi […] so easily accessible that he need never unpack during his whole journey.

American artist, Joseph Pennell (1857-1926) was an eminent etcher and lithographer, who championed and revived the art of print making in the early 20th Century (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2016).  Although he travelled widely, Pennell lived in New York from 1918-1926 (Library of Congress, 2016) and created several beautiful drawings of the city.

For Pennell, New York was the ‘Unbelievable City’, a marvel of the modern world owing to its immense size and towering buildings, which are beautifully captured in his sketch of the city’s magnificent skyline.

New York Skyline by Pennell

New York Skyline by Pennell

Turner too is immediately in awe at the sight of New York on the horizon; on his arrival he proclaims:

There is no thrill at the end of any voyage upon this planet like the thrill at the first sight of New York rising like a bed of rock crystals out of the sea.

However, on closer inspection, Turner’s opinion of the city is not always the most enthusiastic, the smell he ascribes it for example is, “a blending of ice-cream and patchouli – a sickly mixture,” and he describes the general atmosphere as a terrifying mixture of noisy traffic and towering sky scrapers

Building a Skyscraper - Pennell

Building a Skyscraper – Pennell

that vomit, “from six to ten thousand people into the street,” all accompanied by a constant series of explosions caused by the underground work on subways and building foundations.  The heavy building programme in New York during the 1920s was also captured by Pennell, though instead of complaining about the noise he marvels at the speed at which the skyscrapers are completed:

The work goes on by night as well as by day. A few months will see a skyscraper in place, equipped and occupied.

Statue of Liberty - Pennell

Statue of Liberty – Pennell

Both men also differ on their views of the iconic Statue of Liberty; for Pennell it is an “effective feature,” which “greets the incoming ships from the sea” while for Turner, the statue is decidedly, “stumpy and ungraceful.”

Turner further complains about his subway journey, describing the carriages as, “small, cheaply fitted, sordid, and uncomfortable,” whereas Pennell praises the linked elevated railway as a “pleasant mode of conveyance outside the rush hours.”  However, despite his spirited complaining, Turner does give some interesting insights into the New York of the 1920s, for example although he dislikes the experience; he does explain how the subway system works:

The Elevated - Pennell

The Elevated – Pennell

To get quickly up-town it is necessary to take the subway.  You go underground.  There is an office where you can get change and then, putting in a nickel (five cents), you pass through clanging turnstiles on to the platform.  There are no ticket collectors nor porters.

and he provides this description of the newly implemented, modern marvel – traffic lights:

Red and green lamps are placed on pillars at these intersections and by them traffic is regulated.  In broad daylight up until 2a.m. these green and red lights are flashing in the streets.  All the accidents – as a taxi driver explained to me – take place after 2 a.m.

Also, according to Turner, one of the advantages of such a large city that swarms with people is the anonymity and indifference afforded to its visitors:

There is in New York no public opinion, no curiosity.  The complete impersonality of the big hotel and the big store where no one watches you to see that you spend something is very soothing.

Although only small details, you begin to get a vivid impression of a busy, crowded city that is full potential and growth.  It is a city of the future and indeed it inspired Turner to philosophise about progress and the future of cities and civilisation.  In his musings Turner even predicts the invention of mobile phones:

it is possible for me to predict that in much less than a hundred years from now one will be able to speak to any person in any part of the world by just taking a wireless receiver and transmitter out of one’s coat pocket.

Overall, regardless of its traffic and noise, both Turner and Pennell recognised that it is the architectural beauty of New York that really shines, it is a city designed to inspire and amaze and delight:

sketch of Cortland Street Ferry and the Brooklyn Bridge by Pennell

Cortland Street Ferry and the Brooklyn Bridge by Pennell

The sky-scrapers were slender pinnacles of light, across the river crawled in every direction ferry-boats that were just many-tiered electric palaces, and Brooklyn was one vast blaze netted with dark lines glittering beside the water.

 

Sources:
  • Pennell, J (1911) The Great New York. London: T.N. Foulis [Reserve 917.47 PEN]
  • Turner, W.J. (1929) A trip to New York and a Poem. London: Mandrake Press [Reserve 821.912 TUR]
  • Jacquetta Hawkes, (2004) ‘Turner, Walter James Redfern (1889–1946)’, rev. Sayoni Basu, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/36589, accessed 24 Aug 2016]
  • Library of Congress, (2016) Drawing (Master). Available from:http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/drwgma/pennell.html
  • Encyclopedia Britannica (2016) Joseph Pennell.  Available from: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joseph-Pennell

 

Siegfried Sassoon: The hell where youth and laughter go

Written by Louise Cowan, Trainee Liaison Librarian

Each year on the second Sunday in November, the Sunday closest to 11th November or Armistice Day, we remember and honour the achievements and sacrifices of those who fought in the two World Wars and later conflicts.

I was rewarded by an intense memory of men whose courage had shown me the power of the human spirit – that spirit which could withstand the utmost assault

Memoirs of An Infantry Officer, p247

Book cover for Memoirs of an Infantry Officer

Memoirs of an Infantry Officer – Printing Collection 821.912

Siegfried Sassoon, a solider during the First World War, is remembered as one of the great War Poets, known for his ferociously realistic yet compassionate writing. The title for this post is taken from his poem ‘Suicide in Trenches’ which bluntly describes the suicide of a young soldier and scolds the ‘smug-faced’ crowds who watch the troops march by, warning them to be glad they will not have to endure the same horrors.

Although Sassoon served with the Royal Welch Fusiliers and was given the nickname ‘Mad Jack’ for his brave but dangerous actions in battle, he also protested against what he viewed to be an unnecessary prolonging of the conflict by those in power.

 

Although the war has been described as the greatest event in history, it could be tedious and repetitional for an Ordinary Infantry Officer like myself.

‘Memoirs of An Infantry Officer’ p177

 Contemporary reaction to his poetry was divided, with some readers finding his vivid descriptions too extreme and unpatriotic:

Photograph of book spine

The War Poems – Finzi Book Room–Shelf 22D/33

…his rampant grief/Moaned, shouted, sobbed, and choked, while he was kneeling/ Half naked on the floor. In my belief/ Such men have lost all patriotic feeling.

‘Lamentations’ – The War Poems

However, Sassoon’s work endured; it captured at its heart, the truth of trench warfare and the sacrifices made by the soldiers of the Great War.   In 1951, Sassoon was appointed CBE and he received an honorary degree of DLitt at Oxford in 1965.

 

 

 

If you would like to know more about the WW1 materials held at UMASCS you’ll find a list of our archive records and library collections here.

 

Sources:

Sassoon, S. (1919) The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon. London: Heinemann

Sassoon, S ( 1931) Memoirs of An Infantry Officer. London: Faber and Faber

Rupert Hart-Davis, “Sassoon, Siegfried Loraine (1886–1967),” Jon Stallworthy in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (Oxford: OUP, 2004); online ed., ed. Lawrence Goldman, October 2009, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/35953 (accessed November 5, 2015).

The Poetry Foundation – Siegfried Sassoon

BBC Historic Figures – Siegfried Sassoon

Keats: A thing of beauty is a joy forever

Written by Louise Cowan, Trainee Liaison Librarian

This weekend sees the 220th birthday of English Romantic poet John Keats.

The title of this post, perhaps made famous more recently by Mary Poppins, is taken from Keats’ work ‘Endymion’.  The poem is based on the Greek myth in which the eponymous young shepherd attracts the attentions of moon goddess Selene.  Although ‘Endymion’ was one of Keats’ more infamously criticized poems, it can also be considered a landmark in his career.  Keats himself described Endymion as, “a test, a trail of my Powers of Imagination and chiefly of my invention which is a rare thing indeed…”  (Gittings, 1971, p209)

The UMASCS library holds a rather lovely (and large!) edition of the poem from 1873 containing detailed engravings on steel by F. Joubert from paintings by E.J. Poynter:

Engraving from Keats' Endymion

Engraving from Keats’ Endymion

 

Another beautifully illustrated edition of Keats’ work is this 1903 text, part of the Red Letter Library series, published by The Gresham Publishing Company.  It features delicate Art Nouveau illustrations by Talwin Morris:

Photo 28-10-2015, 16 15 58

Art Nouveau illustrations

The book is stored in our Printing Collection as an example of the ‘Glasgow Style’ which flourished at the end of the nineteenth century.  For more information about Talwin Morris visit our exhibition page here.

To find out more about Keats, Gittings’ biography is available in the UMASCS open access book reference collections at call number: Mark Longmann Library 821.78 KEA/GIT

Sources: Gittings, R. (1971) John Keats.  Harmondsworth: Pelican Books