Click On Title To Link To Wikipedia Entry For John Singer Sargent. His artwork, especially the portraits, seem to be a window that expressed the essence of this period.
Book Review
The Mauve Decade: American Life At The End Of The 19th Century, Thomas Beer, Carol and Graf Publishers, New York, 1926
Every once in a while one comes across a gem of book and is not quite sure what to do with it. That is the case with this gossip-laden, satirically biting literary book, “Mauve Decade”, that deals with the highs and lows of American culture in the last decade of the 19th century. You, know the time of the well-known "robber barons who until recently were the main villains in the on-going American saga. And they were! And their descendants, literally or not, still are!
As a matter of course I should explain that I picked this book up for the purpose, I thought, of taking a look at the period of the emergence of the American imperial presence that we continue to live with. I also was looking to round out the milieu in which the American labor movement was beginning to feel its oats. The period of the great trade union, and later Socialist Party leader, Eugene V. Debs-led Pullman Strike and other bloody labor battles that should have told even the most naïve militant that the struggle ahead was going to be long and arduous. Those 'robber barons" meant to keep their profits. That is the book I bargained for but I got something quite different.
What I got was one of the most obscure, but intrinsically interesting, takes on the American literary scene, the so-called ”Republic of Letters” movement that was being pushed at the time in order to create a separate and distinct American cultural haven. The author, writing in 1926 (at least that is when the book was published) is taking a broad look back at the 1890’s based on his own observations, the recollections of literary friends and those with some kind of ax to grind. Thomas Beer is not a name that I am familiar with either in my various reviews of American literary history or in any other capacity. I have not, at this point when this review is being written, taken the time to find out exactly who he was. That, I do not believe is necessary, in order appreciate what a little gem he has produced.
Most of the names that Beer drops, and there is a great deal of name-dropping in the book,, are very familiar to readers of this space-Mark Twain, William Cullen Bryant (these were the days when every other Brahmin used three names to beef up his or her resume), William Dean Howells, Charles Godkin, The James brothers-in short, the literary establishment, make that the Brahmin establishment, that coalesced after the Civil War and was entering, according to Beer, its decline. I will not argue that point here but merely point out that his style is to be droll and venomous as he lists the roll call of the famous that get recognition at the expense of his own favored authors.
Needless to say this book centers on the Boston/New York literary scene with a few passing remarks about the Westerners who would go on to create a very different type of literature. There are also many, many dry comments on the “Irish” problem, which is the fact that this ‘race’ has started to come into its own politically. Along the way Beer comments on the then new obscure and now long forgotten political scandals of the day, the literary sexual censorship that was being enforced by public officials and magazine/newspaper editors alike (I can only imagine what Beer would have made of the current wide open sexual references.), the fashions and watering holes of the rich and famous and their pet peeves. Wonderful stuff, all done in a rather arcane style that would not pass today’s rapid repartee standards. This guy knows how to skewer even from long distance. We can always appreciate a little of that no matter what generation we are in. Nice work, Thomas Beer.
