What was going on in 1929?

The historical background to these books is as interesting to me as the books themselves - although there is always inevitably a time-lag between the reality and addressing reality in fiction. For instance, 1929 saw many writers dealing with the horrors of the First World War - All Quiet in the Western Front being the prime example.

Nevertheless, these were books written at the end of the Jazz Age and before the Great Depression, during the Weimar Republic of swinging Berlin, in the absinthe-filled atmosphere of Paris and so on... This thread is here to discuss the history, as well as some non-fiction books on the inter-war period.

One topic (and book) springs immediately to mind, and I'm planning to re-read that too: The Great Crash 1929.

The Jazz Singer, the first commercially successful sound film, was released in 1927. Alfred Hitchcock produced the first British talkie, Blackmail, in 1929.

Popeye makes his debut (January 17).

Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Union (January 18); he moves to Turkey in January 29 and applies for sanctuary in France and Germany.

The Seeing Eye Dog organization is formed.

St. Valentine's Day Massacre: Seven gangsters, rivals of Al Capone, are murdered in Chicago.

The first Academy Awards are announced.

A part-talkie film version of Show Boat, based on Edna Ferber's novel rather than the musical, premieres in Palm Beach (starring Laura La Plante and Joseph Schildkraut). It is critically panned and not successful at the box office.

The first public demonstration of color TV is held.

Scotland Yard seizes 12 nude paintings of D. H. Lawrence from the Mayfair Gallery on grounds of indecency.

The German airship Graf Zeppelin begins a round-the-world flight (ends August 29).

The radio comedy show Amos and Andy makes its debut.

October 18 - Women are announced to be persons by the privy council in Britain. Women can be appointed to the Canadian Senate, an achievement by five Canadian women called the Famous Five.

October 24 - October 29 - Wall Street Crash of 1929: Three multi-digit percentage drops wipe out more than $30 billion from the New York Stock Exchange (10 times greater than the annual budget of the federal government).

November 7 - In New York City, the Museum of Modern Art opens to the public.

The first lightpoles appear in London.

December 28 - "Black Saturday" in Samoa: New Zealand colonial police kill 11 unarmed demonstrators, an event which leads the Mau movement to demand independence for Samoa

December 31 - Guy Lombardo plays Auld Lang Syne for the first time.

I believe the "quaint" (in Donald Rumsfeld's words) Geneva Convention dates from 1929.

12 October, 1929 - federal elections in Australia resulted in a change of government and the Prime Minister of the day Stanley Melbourne Bruce lost his seat in that election. James Scullin was leader of the Labor Party which won the election and he subsequently became Prime Minister of Australia in 1929.

October 18 - Women are announced to be persons by the privy council in Britain. Crikey!!!! so what were they before then?

Murr, some people thought they were cats.

Other events going on in 1929. This just in from the New York Times.

R. W. DANIEL MARRIES MRS. C. B. CHRISTIAN
New York Times
Friday 11 October 1929
President of Liberty National Bank Weds as Third Wife Distant Relative in Virginia
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Special to The New York Times
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RICHMOND, Va., Oct. 10---Robert W. Daniel, president of the Liberty National Bank of New York, and Mrs. Charlotte Bemiss Christian, widow of Frank Palmer Christian of this city and niece of the late John Skelton Williams, at one time Controller of the Currency, were married here this evening. The ceremony was performed by the Rev. Dr. Frank T. McFaden, Presbyterian minister of Winchester.

Mr. Daniel originally came from Richmond. They will pass their honeymoon at Brandon on the James River, which he acquired a few years ago. Mr. Daniel is a brother of Channing W. Daniel, prominent in Philadelphia financial circles.
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Mrs. Christian's first husband died in 1918 while in the service. This is Mr. Daniel's third marriage. He first married in 1914 the widow of Lucien P. Smith, member of Congress from West Virginia, who was lost in the Titanic disaster. She was Miss Mary Eloise Hughes of Washington. They were divorced. On Dec. 6, 1923, Mr. Daniel married Mrs.Marjorie Durant Campbell, daughter of William C. Durant, automobile manufacturer. They had a daughter, Margery Randolph Daniel, and were divorced in September of last year.

Both Mr. Daniel and his bride are descendants of Edmund Randolph, who was Governor of Virginia, first Attorney General of the United States and later Secretary of State. Mr. Daniel is chairman of the board of the Richmond Trust Company. During the was he served as Captain and Major in the army.

Jürgen Habermas and Agnes Heller were born in 1929.

The German physician Fritz Lickint demonstrated the first statistical evidence linking lung cancer and cigarettes.

For a general introduction to and overview of all things cultural in Weimar Germany in the 1920s, I can highly recommend Weimar Culture by Peter Gay...



>8 urania1: I like it!

12:00 noon, Tuesday, January 15, 1929, 501 Auburn Street, NE, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.: a son is born to Alberta Williams King and Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr.

>12 rbhardy3rd:: wow, I hadn't realized that.

#12 Talk about auspicious.
#11 I second the recommendation for Peter Gay's book. He provides a succinct, well-written overview of the Weimar Republic.

#12 .... January 15th .... a good date ....

In February, 1929 the Society for the Suppression of Vice lodged a complaint with the court in New York about the publication of The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall. The book was described as one that tended to debauch public morals, that its subject matter was offensive to public decency and that it was calculated to deprave and corrupt those minds open to its immoral influence and who might come in contact with it. The trial was heard in April 1929 and Morris Ernst appeared for the publishers. The defence argued the constitutional right to free speech and successfully defended the right to publish. The action was dismissed.
Ref: The Trials of Radclyffe Hall.

Born: 24 August 1929 - Yasser Arafat
Born: 1 April 11929 in Brno, Czechoslovakia - Milan Kundera

Arab Uprising of 1929 - "In the summer of 1929, a long-running dispute between Muslims and Jews over access to the Western Wall in Jerusalem escalated, and erupted into a series of violent demonstrations and riots in late August. During the week of riots, at least 116 Arabs and 133 Jews were killed and 339 wounded."

We're in the midst of an emergency bathroom remodel, after discovering significant water damage from leaks in the tile around the upstairs bathtub and shower. Yesterday, the contractor removed the old tub and discovered that it was stamped with the date OCTOBER 1929.

No - what a coincidence! An emergency bathroom remodel at this time of year - poor you and family. Any pics of the old tub???

Probably due for a replacement or rehab if it's 80 years old! ;-}

Going back to post #1, I have just finished John Kenneth Galbraith's classic The Great Crash of 1929. Written with scathingly dry wit, it is not only historically fascinating but also scarily relevant, in some ways prescient, about our current financial/economic crisis.

I plan to read some books actually written in 1929, but I would recommend this to anyone interested in a look at what was going on at the time (and it's really well written, too).

#21 Rebecca, I'm very keen to read the Galbraith book on 1929. I just don't know when!!

Am about to start All Quiet on the Western Front.

Some notable books published in 1929:

Dodsworth by Sinclair Lewis
Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf