The idea of building, commanding and using artificial creatures, based on mechanical components that would assist mankind doing anything from work, transportation or pleasure goes back to very early stories of creation such as the Gilgamesh epic. And mythology from ancient Greece and other regions. That idea also demonstrates man’s wish to become the creator […]
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Tag: 1940s United States
Star Attractions: Twentieth-Century Movie Magazines and Global Fandom by T. J. Mcdonald and L. Lanck...
Ever since motion pictures became a crucial part of popular culture, certain consumers decided that simply watching those products and going to the theaters was not enough. Accordingly, editors of the earliest movie magazines quickly realized that gossip, behind-the-scenes talk and all sorts or rumors surrounding those new media stars obviously were at least as […]
Music Wars: Money, Politics, and Race in the Construction of Rock and Roll Culture, 1940-1960 by Joh...
“One way to interpret American society in the second half of the twentieth century, for good or ill, is to see it as the triumph of rock and roll culture,” argues John C. Hajduk, professor of history at the University of Montana Western in the book at hand. This peculiar culture was a compelling force […]
From Ameche to Zozzled: A Glossary of Hard-Boiled Slang of the 1920s through the 1940s by Joe Tradii...
The hard-boiled fiction from the 1930s and the many films noir later, apart from several other similarities, shared a special gangster jargon and streetwise language that lent an extra air of authenticity to those works. As the many weird expressions, prohibition-time lingo, proverbs and often sexists, racist and plainly offensive words used there quickly went […]
America Goes Hawaiian. The Influence of Pacific Island Culture on the Mainland by Geoff Alexander (2...
What began on the American mainland in the 1850s, when the first hula dancers were presented to the public and what was promoted by Hawaiian music only a few years later – the promise of paradise on earth, an Eden in endless summer – the Hawaiian way of life, for the vast majority of Americans […]
Selling Folk Music: An Illustrated History by Ronald D. Cohen and David Bonner (2018)
This title was designed to portray the various setups, styles, collages, and the cover art of both scores, books, festival ads, piano rolls, and vinyl that was marketed and sold in packages that related to the musical content of “folk music” in the United States at a certain period. So there is not too much […]
Soundies Jukebox Films and the Shift to Small-Screen Culture by Andrea J. Kelley (2018)
During the 1940s about 1,850 “Soundies” were produced in the US, destined to be played on 5,000 special standalone film machines in circulation nationwide. Those 16mm short films with a musical content were presented in coin-operated movie jukeboxes that were known as “Panorams,” which could be found in consumer places or likely in any place […]
Dark City. The Real Los Angeles Noir by Jim Heimann (2018)
With Dark City a very unusual portrait of an American city is now available. It impresses with many pictures of the city of angels that show the really shadowy sides, the ones that inhabitants from the early 1910s until the 1950s experienced, and that provided the soil and inspiration for many novels and movies. As […]
Yodeling and Meaning in American Music by Timothy E. Wise (2016)
Only for very short periods of time have yodeling and yodeling artists received critical attention and commercial success in the US. For most people, yodeling is not even close to singing; although the two forms of musical expression are very similar in a number of ways. And there are accounts of yodeling in (European) literature […]