The Best of Everything

28 Nov 2012 By Susan Barsy in The Political Animal at Rest Tags: 1950s, dress, feminism, film, film stills, Hope Lange, modernism, sexual freedom, The Best of Everything, western culture, women, workplace

My reservoir of civic concern has yet to fill up again, so let me fill the time by writing a few lines about a worthwhile old movie, The Best of Everything (1959).

Mid-century modernism and the sexual and social mores that went with it inform this surprisingly somber melodrama, which stars Hope Lange, Joan Crawford, Donna Baker, and Suzy Parker as working women whose lives intersect at a New York publishing firm. Shot on location in Manhattan in glorious Technicolor, the film is a visual and sociological trove of period detail.

A steadfastly chick-centric perspective and an emphasis on female solidarity lend distinction to the film’s portrayal of sexual opportunism and the hazards of women’s sexual freedom just prior to the dawn of modern feminism (a.k.a. “women’s lib”). For more on the premise, plot, and fun modernist setting of the movie, click here, here, and here.

Image: Hope Lange in The Best of Everything, from this source.

Florence and Margaret Make a Play for Freedom

7 Aug 2012 By Susan Barsy in Female tennis players Tags: 1900s, 1910s, athletes, Chicago, dress, Finley Peter Dunne, Florence Sutton, Margaret Abbott Dunne, Margaret Ives Abbott, old photographs, Olympics, Progressive Era, women, women's movement 2 Comments

The athleticism of the women competing in the London Olympics—and their outfits—underscore how dramatically women’s dress and freedom have changed in the century since women like the American tennis great Florence Sutton began trail-blazing.

Sutton’s pioneering sportsmanship—and the achievements of other women in sports like golf and swimming—were striking indications of the liberties that Progressive Era women were intent on claiming. Circa 1900, it was rare for a respectable woman to do anything but walk, ride, or ski, partly because women were expected to be so heavily clad and partly because they were never supposed to go out unaccompanied.

While poking around for more on Florence and early American sportswomen, I made a surprising discovery. The first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal was Chicagoan Margaret Ives Abbott (1878-1955). She won the Olympic competition in women’s golf in Paris in 1900. Two years later, she became the wife of noted Chicago journalist Finley Peter Dunne. Margaret was born in India, where her father had been a merchant, but was raised in Chicago, where her mother (also named Margaret Ives Abbott) wrote for the Trib and had a literary salon.

Apparently the Paris Olympics were run in an off-hand fashion, for during her lifetime Margaret was never fully aware of what she had won. Only after her death did historians realize that her victory in what seemed to be just another golf tournament was actually part of the Olympic competition. And she received a bowl, not a medal.

Image: Florence Sutton circa 1910, courtesy of the Library of Congress, from this source.

June 25, 2015:
Margaret Abbott’s granddaughter, Miranda Dunne Parry,
has kindly shared this recollection of Margaret, written by her father Philip Dunne
and published in the August 1984 issue of Golf Digest. Enjoy!

Worshippers

20 Jul 2012 By Susan Barsy in Political ephemera Tags: 1828 election, Americana, Andrew Jackson, artifacts, campaigning, heroes, homemade, political engagement, US presidents, voting, women 11 Comments

Some objects retain their charm long after their usefulness is gone. This 180-year-old sewing box, bearing the words “Victory to Jackson,” is one of them. Notwithstanding its worn corners and faded velvet, it is still expressive of a quiet, feminine hope, cherished at a time long before any American woman had the right to vote.

This exclusion did nothing to keep women from following politics and having political opinions anyway. I would have loved to see this box and its owner back in the day. Who was the owner of this rainbow-colored trinket, and where had she gotten it? How had she become a Jackson supporter? Was she a rural or a city dweller? And was the box homemade?

The elaborate materials of the box are impressive for 1828 or 32, when it would have been made. The stamped metal trim, the multi-colored dyed velvet, and the special, machine-stamped, fabric inset on top, with its crisp flags and still brightly emblazoned lettering, suggest that its maker had easy access to goods made in factories. The way the fancy velvet coordinates so perfectly with the colors of the inset top makes me wonder whether this might have been a mass-produced item. The box’s interior, though, with its pasted-in picture of Jackson—probably taken from a newspaper or quarterly—, is so shrine-like that it’s tough to avoid concluding that the item was homemade.

Certainly, the creation of this political trinket was painstaking. Even the cardboard box that supplied its core was heavily worked over. The result is a powerful item, that, whether placed in a sitting room or used quietly by a hearth, was not just a proud declaration of sentiment but a daring conversation piece. Who could see such a thing in a woman’s home and not begin talking?

The object of all the fuss was General Andrew Jackson, who in 1828 made a no-holds-barred bid for the presidency. His campaign was famous for its unprecedented reach, for tapping into popular loyalties to vanquish a retrograde elite. Once in office, he was a tireless champion of democracy, and, though his years in office were remarkable for their controversy, he easily won election to a second term.

Jackson had true star power. He was widely celebrated as a military hero. In an age when Americans relied on newspapers, letters, and word of mouth to get their news, he is said to have been the most widely known figure in the country. Everyone knew who he was. If nothing else, they knew he was the hero of the Battle of New Orleans—the man who, in vanquishing British troops in 1815, had given Americans a new reason to be proud of their nationality.

His broad fame engendered curiosity about what he actually looked like, making likenesses of him prized. Such likenesses could then become objects of adoration, as had clearly been the case with our sewing-box lady. To obtain the likeness of a leading man wasn’t an easy thing. It’s not surprising that, when photography came along in the 1840s and 50s, politicians were among the first to have their pictures taken.

We are far removed from the world that once worshipped its heroes. Politics was no less nasty then than now, but the emphasis on excellency was more thorough-going. The political realm was the only one promising true celebrity, leading the best men to compete there for popular affection and renown.

At the same time, statesmen’s practical remoteness made it easier for citizens to cherish their own homemade visions of their leaders, endowing them with fantastical virtues and showering them with the love that was once regarded as one of the chief compensations of public service.

The sewing box is part of the Susan H. Douglas Collection of Political Americana
at Cornell University Library, which has made digital images of it publicly available via Flickr Commons.
To see other items in the collection, click here.

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The Best of Everything

Florence and Margaret Make a Play for Freedom

Worshippers

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