Flowers and Flames

1921

Artist : Kay Nielsen

Carlotta Monterey as Mary Blair and Louis Wolheim as Bob "Yank" Smith in The Hairy Ape, 1922. Monterey replaced Mildred Douglas and met playwright Eugene O'Neill during the production of "The Hairy Ape." She later married him.

Yank Smith is an engine stoker on an ocean liner, and very confident in his power over the ship's engines and his men. When passenger Mary Blair, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, refers to him as a "hairy ape," he is first outraged, but then begins to brood over it and question his place in the world. He leaves the ship and wanders into Manhattan, only to find he does not belong anywhere—neither with the socialites on Fifth Avenue, nor with the labor organizers on the waterfront. In a fight for social belonging, Yank's mental state disintegrates into animalistic, and in the end he is defeated by an ape in which Yank's character has been reflected. The Hairy Ape is a portrayal of the impact industrialization and social class has on the dynamic character Yank.

In her review of the play Dorothy Parker wrote of "the power of this curious, brutal, fantastic play of the soul of a stoker. One is ashamed to place neat little bouquets of praise on this mighty conception of O'Neill's. It is like smiling tolerantly at the ocean, and saying, "Very pretty indeed."

Photo: MCNY

"Flowers and Flames" Kay Nielsen 's 1921 illustration depicting the American actress Carlotta Monterey, who would later marry playwright Eugene O' Neil

December 1, 1924 "This robe de style, worn here by actress Carlotta Monterey, will be shown at the Palais Galliera. Made of cream-white taffeta, it features a rust velvet bow and black velvet appliques decorated with pearl beads. Designed by Jeanne-Marie Lanvin." From Fashion of Bygone Days, FB.

Flowers and Flames, 1921 - Kay Rasmus Nielsen (1886-1957)

- illustration depicting the American actress Carlotta Monterey,

Featured Post: When Light Breaks Through: A Salem Witch Trials Story by Brenda Murphy

About When Light Breaks Through: A Salem Witch Trials Story: When Light Breaks Through brings a fresh perspective that takes us beyond the witch trials to tell a compelling, hopeful story of what happened in Salem Village. In 1692, twelve-year-old Ann Putnam and the other “afflicted children” bring devastation to the colonial New England community. Beginning as a daring, adolescent game, their accusations of witchcraft lead to twenty executions and scores of imprisonments, wreck families and create deep and bitter divisions among the people. Five years later, Joseph Green, a young schoolteacher who is in love and eager to marry, takes on the ministry that no one else wants and with it the mission of healing Salem Village. With some dramatic actions that earn the people’s respect, Joseph makes progress in his quest to bring them together, but he knows that true fellowship will elude them while the hostility from the witch trials casts a shadow over every relationship and encounter. When the opportunity comes, Joseph helps Ann to make an appeal that could finally unite the community. Targeted Age Group: 16+ Written by: Brenda Murphy Buy the ebook: Buy the Book On Amazon Buy the Print Book: Buy the Book On Amazon Buy the Book On Barnes & Noble/Nook Buy the Book On BookShop Author Bio: Brenda Murphy is the author of more than twenty books. Recently she has been writing mainly historical fiction. Besides When Light Breaks Through: A Salem Witch Trials Story (2023), her recent fiction includes Becoming Carlotta: A Biographical Novel (2018), based on the life of the notorious actress Carlotta Monterey, and After the Voyage: An Irish American Story (2016), based on the experience of her immigrant family in the Boston area from 1870 until the 1930s. After teaching at universities in New York and Connecticut, Brenda now lives in Maryland where she enjoys writing full time surrounded by deer and horse farms. Follow the author on social media: Learn more about the writer. Visit the Author's Website Read the full article

Carlotta Monterey

O'NEILL, GRANDE DRAMMATURGO http://www.impresaoggi.com/it2/2398-eugene_gladstone_oneill_e_il_suo_concetto_originale_di_tragedia/ O'Neill con la terza moglie Carlotta Monterey, 1933 https://www.instagram.com/p/ClVjNYfjeAc/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Flying the Friendly Skies

Flying the Friendly Skies

A few posts ago (the April 11 issue) I wrote about E.B. White’s love of flying, and how his (and the nation’s) exuberance for aviation suddenly came crashing down along with Knute Rockne’s plane in a Kansas wheat field.

May 23, 1931 cover by Garrett Price.

The death of the famed Notre Dame football coach had White pondering a new, safer path for aviation that seemed to be embodied in a…

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cooking with Hayley by mcpartyworld

I’ve always been intrigued by Carlotta Monterey…..

.

“The first time I met O'Neill, I thought him the rudest man I'd ever seen!”

Carlotta…you haven’t met me…I digress… 4 years after their initial meeting she changed her tune…Carlotta had divorced her 3rd hubby — Ralph Barton, who later killed himself blaming his estrangement from Carlotta for his melancholy. O'Neill was recovering from a bout with alcoholism and the deterioration of his marriage to his second wife.

O’Neill was an alcoholic..

“I need you.’ He kept saying. ‘I need you, I need you'—never ‘I love you, I think you are wonderful—just ‘I need you, I need you.’”.. ‘so needy’!!!

She did everything for O’Neill…sorted his finances …was his secretary and typed his manuscripts…

O'Neill wrote ‘Strange Interlude’

and ‘Mourning Becomes Electra,” which he for ever after called “Carlotta's plays”

Both were very possessive… Carlotta more so…she was his wife, mistress, secretary, and nurse…all at once …she also thought there was no room in their marriage for his friends or even their own children!! On their 12th anniversary, …as a tribute to your love and tenderness.”

he gave to Carlotta a work titled

‘Long Day's Journey Into Night’..this autobiographical work caused O’Neill a large amount of thirst…grief and depression…so much so that he said it was only to be published 25 years after his death. A few months after his death she had it published!!! She was strapped for cash… now… I’m wondering why she didn’t ask her step daughter Oona O’Neil CHAPLIN to lend her a dollar or two?

I’m also wondering if she published it for spite as at one point they became …errrr… well their marriage deteriorated…Carlotta's growing suspicion over visits to O'Neill by actress friends was noted and at one point, he went to court to have her confined to a mental institution she then filed suit for separate maintenance, charging extreme cruelty…

They did reunite and I’m sure O’Neill said once more “need you…I NEED YOU!”…

So needy!!

The first 2 pics she’s wearing Cartier…image by Steichen and the caricature is by her second husband the brilliant Ralph Barton.

Caption by @richardquarterly

1924 E. Steichen photo of Carlotta Monterey wearing a diamond head band by Cartier. From Fashion of Bygone Days, FB.

Happy National Handwriting Day!

This year, we bring you a selection of correspondence and other handwritten items from the M. Eleanor Fitzgerald Papers (UWM Mss 13). According to nationaldaycalendar.com, National Handwriting Day was established in 1977 by the Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association, “to promote the consumption of pens, pencils, and writing paper.” January 23rd is John Hancock’s birthday, the first signer of the Declaration of Independence, making it an understandable date for this holiday.

M. Eleanor Fitzgerald, known to friends as Fitzi, was born in 1877 in Deerfield, Wisconsin. In the early years of the twentieth century, she grew interested in the anarchist and labor movement, prompting her to begin working on the behalf of imprisoned labor leaders. She was close with anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman even after their deportation from the US in 1918. During the 1920s she joined the Provincetown Players, bringing her in contact with many playwrights including Eugene O’Neill and E. E. Cummings. Her papers include correspondence with many of these individuals as well as others, leaving us with a wide array of different handwriting.

The first pair of photos above are the first and last page of a letter sent from Eugene O’Neill to Fitzgerald in 1929 (box 2, folder 24). Born in 1888, O’Neill is a notable American playwright and Nobel laureate. Many of his plays were put on by the Provincetown Players in the 1910s and 1920s. By the time of this letter, he had won three Pulitzer Prizes for his plays Beyond the Horizon (1920), Anna Christie (1922), and Strange Interlude (1928). He would go on to win one more Pulitzer for Long Day’s Journey into Night (posthumously in 1957) and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1936. His letter checks in on mutual friends, discusses Strange Interlude’s success and his other productions, and mentions his upcoming wedding to Carlotta Monterey, provided that his current wife, Agnes Boulton, doesn’t change her mind about their pending divorce.

The second photo above comes from a letter sent in 1920 from Alexander Berkman to Fitzgerald (box 1, folder 11). Known as Sasha, Berkman was born in 1870 in present-day Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire. He immigrated to the United States in 1888 where he became a part of the anarchist movement with friend and lover Emma Goldman. He was imprisoned for fourteen years in the 1890s for the attempted assassination of Henry Clay Frick and later another two years for his opposition to the draft in 1917. It was in the intervening years that he met Fitzgerald and they became close friends. He was deported to Russia under the 1918 Anarchist Exclusion Act. After growing disillusioned with the Bolshevik movement, both Berkman and Goldman left Russia in 1921, moving around Europe, often illegally, according to letters sent to Fitzgerald. The letter above is addressed to Fitzgerald asking about previous letters he had sent to her as he had not heard from her in a long time. He suggests different people to send letters through to ensure that they make it to him in Moscow. The rest of the letter, beginning at the end of this page, is rushed as Berkman needed to catch a train for Petrograd. Per other letters sent to Fitzgerald, he seemed to bounce between the two cities through much of 1920 before leaving Russia and ending up in Stockholm in 1922.

The final photo above comes from Russian lessons given to Fitzgerald by Berkman, labeled by Fitzi as “My Russian Lessons per Sasha” (box 1, folder 22). These undated notes show Berkman’s attempts to teach Fitzgerald Russian with a Latinized alphabet, explaining the different pronunciations of letters and letter combinations. Several letters from Berkman indicate a deep love and affection between the two, making phrases about love and kissing a logical introduction to the language.

More of Fitzgerald’s correspondence, both typed and handwritten, can be found in her papers at the UWM Archives. This National Handwriting Day, slow down and take a break from screens and try hand writing a note to friend or penning a journal entry.

-Samantha Dickson, Archives Graduate Intern

Featured Post: When Light Breaks Through: A Salem Witch Trials Story by Brenda Murphy

About When Light Breaks Through: A Salem Witch Trials Story: When Light Breaks Through takes us beyond the witch trials to tell a riveting, expansive story of what happened in Salem Village. 1692. In what begins as a daring adolescent game, twelve-year-old Ann Putnam becomes a ringleader of the “afflicted children” who accuse scores of people of witchcraft, resulting in twenty executions and untold misery for those imprisoned and their families in Massachusetts and Maine. 1697. Joseph Green, a young schoolteacher who is in love and eager to marry, takes on the Salem Village ministry that no one else wants and sets about mending the bitter discord that divides the congregation and the village. With his wife Elizabeth, he gradually earns the respect and trust of his congregation, eventually taking some dramatic actions that move the people to confront their future together as a community. 1706. With Joseph’s help, Ann delves into the darkness of her past, uncovering startling truths about her family and her childhood motivations. Standing before the neighbors whose loved ones she has sent to jail or to their deaths, she makes an appeal that could finally unite the people in forgiveness. The compelling narrative takes us from the girlhood friendship of Ann and Abigail Williams, the other ringleader in the witch trials, to the intense, often shocking drama of the trials themselves, and to the small farming village on the edge of the frontier in 17th-century Massachusetts where Joseph Green pursues his quest to unite a bitterly divided people. Targeted Age Group: 16 and over Written by: Brenda Murphy Buy the ebook: Buy the Book On Amazon Buy the Print Book: Buy the Book On Amazon Buy the Book On Barnes & Noble/Nook Buy the Book On BookShop.org Author Bio: Brenda Murphy is the author of more than twenty books. Recently she has been writing mainly historical fiction. Besides When Light Breaks Through: A Salem Witch Trials Story (2023), her recent fiction includes Becoming Carlotta: A Biographical Novel (2018), based on the life of the actress Carlotta Monterey, and After the Voyage: An Irish American Story (2016), historical fiction based on the experience of her immigrant family in the Boston area from 1870 until the 1930s. After teaching at universities in New York and Connecticut, Brenda now lives in Maryland where she enjoys writing full time surrounded by deer and horse farms. Follow the author on social media: Learn more about the writer. Visit the Author's Website Read the full article