First to Wear a Gainsborough

First to Wear a Gainsborough

1901

The great wheel shaped hat with plumes that during the travels of the celebrated picture which has just been recovered has been generally known as a Gainsborough or a Duchess of Devonshire was never associated in the last century either with the artist or the duchess. It was invented by Mlle. Bertin, the celebrated mantua maker to Marie Antoinette. The queen did not think it became her, but it took the fancy of the pretty and unfortunate Princess de Lamballe, who made the hat popular, and it was known in London and Paris as the Lamballe.

In The Ladies' Magazine for 1785 there is a description of this hat, in which the author described it as "wide brimmed and made of black velvet, surmounted with bunches of ostrich feathers. It is much patronized by the Princess de Lamballe, the Duchess de Polignao and Mme. de Vigier Lebrun." Mme. Lebrun is represented as wearing one of these hats in one of her most popular portraits. — Pall Mall Gazette.

Eight Rules For Popularity

1902

First — Remember that a good voice is as essential to self-possession as good ideas are essential to fluent language, The voice should be carefully trained and developed. A full, clear, flexible voice is one of the surest indications of good breeding.

Second — Remember that one may be witty without being popular, voluble without being agreeable, a great talker and yet a great bore.

Third — Be sincere. One who habitually sneers at everything not only renders herself disagreeable to others but will soon cease to find pleasure in life.

Fourth — Be frank. A frank, open countenance and a clear, cheery laugh are worth far more oven socially than "pedantry in a stiff cravat."

Fifth — Be amiable. You may hide a vindictive nature under a polite exterior for a time, as a cat masks its sharp claws in velvet fur, but the least provocation brings out one as quickly as the other, and ill-natured people are always disliked.

Sixth — Be sensible. Society never lacks for fools, and what you consider very entertaining nonsense may soon be looked upon as very tiresome folly.

Seventh — Be cheerful. If you have no great trouble on your mind you have no right to render other people miserable by your long face and dolorous tones. If you do you will generally be avoided.

Eighth — Above all, be cordial and sympathetic. True cordiality and sympathy unite all the other qualities enumerated, and are certain to secure the popularity so dear to everyone. — New York World.

Ragtime Music Good for Children

1914

Expert at Music Conference Defends Popular Songs — Says They Are Beneficial

Minneapolis, Minn. — Ragtime music and the singing of popular songs of the day does not injure the musical mind of the public school child, but rather encourages individual musical ability, says Ralph L. Baldwin, musical supervisor of the public schools at Hartford, Conn., who is in Minneapolis attending the seventh annual meeting of the National Conference of Music Supervisors.

"I have learned," said Mr. Baldwin, "that ragtime music or the singing of popular songs does not injure the child musically; that is, if not carried to an extreme. Ragtime music is nothing more nor less than a foot tickler for all of us, and it is a good change to fall back upon after pursuing music for some time. You know we have to have a change in music once in a while, just as we have to have a vacation or rest from our work, and this lighter vein of music is what brings about that change. It would not be good enough, though, for the public school pupil to just follow the popular songs of the day and do nothing else, for it leads to nothing."

Eight Rules For Popularity

1902

First — Remember that a good voice is as essential to self-possession as good ideas are essential to fluent language. The voice should be carefully trained and developed. A full, clear, flexible voice is one of the surest indications of good breeding.

Second — Remember that one may be witty without being popular, voluble without being agreeable, a great talker and yet a great bore.

Third — Be sincere. One who habitually sneers at everything not only renders herself disagreeable to others but will soon cease to find pleasure in life.

Fourth — Be frank. A frank, open countenance and a clear, cheery laugh are worth far more even socially than "pedantry in a stiff cravat."

Fifth — Be amiable. You may hide a vindictive nature under a polite exterior for a time, as a cat masks its sharp claws in velvet fur, but the least provocation brings out one as quickly as the other, and ill-natured people are always disliked.

Sixth — Be sensible. Society never lacks for fools, and what you consider very entertaining nonsense may soon be looked upon as very tiresome folly.

Seventh — Be cheerful. If you have no great trouble on your mind you have no right to render other people miserable by your long face and dolorous tones. If you do you will generally be avoided.

Eighth — Above all, be cordial and sympathetic. True cordiality and sympathy unite all the other qualities enumerated, and are certain to secure the popularity so dear to every one. — New York World.

The Growing Passion for Music

1906

By Rupert Hughes

Whatever the percentage of American musical illiteracy may have been a few years ago, it is beyond denial that there is a tremendous change at work. The whole nation is feeling a musical uplift like a sea that swells above a submarine earthquake.

The trouble hitherto has not been that Americans were of a fibre that was dead to musical thrill. Our hearts are not of flannel, and we are not a nation of soft pedals. We have simply been too busy hacking down trees and making bricks without straw, to go to music school. But now, the sewing machine, the telephone, the typewriter and the trolley car are sufficiently installed to give us leisure to take up music and see what there is in it.

We are beginning to learn that, while The Arkansas Traveler, Money Musk, and Nellie Was a Lady are all very well in their way, there are higher and more interesting things in music. There is an expression which musicians hear every day: "I am passionately fond of music but I don't understand it. I know what I like, but I can't tell why."

This speech has become a byword among trained musicians, but it indicates a widespread condition that is at once full of pathos and of hope. America as a nation is "passionately fond of music." It needs only an education in the means of expression. — Good Housekeeping.



Much Against Being Rich

1906

Bishop Gore was the preacher at the opening of the English Church Congress. "The late master of Balliol," he told the great congregation, "used often to say, in his detached way, that he was afraid there was much more in the New Testament against being rich and in favor of being poor than we liked to recognize."

Movie Theater Orchestras Developing Taste for Classical Music

1926

GOOD MUSIC IS MORE POPULAR

MOVIE THEATER ORCHESTRAS HAVE TENDED TO DEVELOP TASTE FOR BETTER CLASS OF MUSIC

Chicago. — Disguised as hand maiden of the cinema, classical music is becoming popular.

Popular, "that is, compared with the classical taste in this country ten years ago. In Chicago, the change is perceptible in all the larger picture houses. One company for instance, which operates six of the largest houses, has announced it has already spent more for music this year than for pictures.

Boon For Good Music

Adolphe Dumont, former Chicago grand opera conductor now directing music in one of the theatres, evaluated this changing public taste as a boon not only for good music but also for good musicians. His own orchestra, he said, has just been increased to more than fifty pieces.

"More grand opera music is played in the large motion picture houses each day," he said, "than played by grand opera orchestras in week. We play grand opera four times a day, week days, and five times Sunday. The grand opera orchestras and Symphony orchestras hardly ever play a program more than three times a week.

Opera Interprets Emotions

"A public demand for more and better music has been recognized. Eight years of patient work, interpreting the emotions of the movies, as only grand opera music can do, created the demand.

"Day after day, showing sometimes slapstick comedy to the tune of the Ride of the Valkyries; love scenes to strains from Tristran and Isolde and Charlie Chaplin's antics to Debussy's 'Girl of the Flaxen Hair,' the moving picture orchestras have given audiences a taste for classical music that many of them would have formerly disavowed. Great music consequently has found a new significance, and importance. It gives motion pictures dramatic intensity."

—Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, Wisconsin Rapids, WI, Aug. 12, 1926, p. 12.

Looks Like Maybe the Bitter End for Jazz

1922

It looks like jazz (or "the jazz" as it was often called) is losing some of its standing in "public favor."

Click the cartoon to see larger.

—Oneonta Daily Star, Oneonta, New York, April 3, 1922, page 4.

Americans Want Opera, Not Jazz or Tin Pan Alley

1920--

OPERA IN SIOUX FALLS

From 43 towns special trains brought cattlemen and their and families to Sioux Falls, S.D., one November night, to hear Grand Opera. Sheep herders, farmers, Indians joined the procession moving toward the hall where the music was to be given. Flivvers and big cars added their occupants to the happy crowd.

And they were happy, and they enjoy their feast of song. For months intensive preparation had been going on for the great day. Lectures were given. Boys and in school studied the stories of operas. Phonographs were bought or rented, records were purchased and listened to with attention. Do Americans like good music? They do. Would they rather have it than cheap, vulgar stuff, jazzy, tinpanny, and ear-wearing? They would.

There are people who are bored by heavy music. That is but natural. But much music which has been foisted upon audiences as "classical" in years past has not been very good music. It has not been human. Just as instinctively will people steer clear of ponderous books and problem plays, which may have their merits for the intellectual few, but are not food for the uncultured many.

When was Shakespeare, well presented, given to an empty house, an unappreciative one? The untutored man may not get so much out of his Shakespeare as the cultured one, but his mind goes straight as a homing bird to the great humanity of the greatest poet.

As the music-managers learn this vital truth about all art, and begin to apply it to music, they find that the composers and opera-builders who understand humanity, its emotions, its springs of action, reach human heart in the same way. Give people tuneful, human music, and they will come, as in this case, 450 miles to hear it.

--Olean Evening Herald, Olean, New York, December 1, 1920, page 2, editorial.