The Fair Labor Standards Act goes beyond descriptions of FLSA coverage and exemptions to help you determine why and how you should proceed on a particular course for your clients. You get:
discussions concerning Department of Labor (DOL) administration, state and local government coverage, child-labor issues, record-keeping, and more
The Fair Labor Standards Act offers practical insights on real-world questions about litigation, remedies, and more.
Book Description
The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair was the largest international exhibition ever built in the United States. More than one hundred fifty pavilions and exhibits spread over six hundred forty-six acres helped the fair live up to its reputation as "the Billion-Dollar Fair." With the cold war in full swing, the fair offered visitors a refreshingly positive view of the future, mirroring the official theme: Peace through Understanding. Guests could travel back in time through a display of full-sized dinosaurs, or look into a future where underwater hotels and flying cars were commonplace. They could enjoy Walt Disney's popular shows, or study actual spacecraft flown in orbit. More than fifty-one million guests visited the fair before it closed forever in 1965. The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair captures the history of this event through vintage photographs, published here for the first time.
Customer Reviews:
NY Worlds Fair .......2007-09-24
I was only about 6 when I went to the NY Worlds Fair. I remember only certain parts like it was a dream. This book helped me put those memories in proper format. Now I understand what really went on behind the scenes and pavillions. This is an excellent book
Reminiscent of a unique American event.......2007-01-18
Provides a comprehensive walk down memory lane for this unique American event, the likes of which we will probably never see again. As we were about to experience a technology revolution, all of the depictions of the future offered up by the Fair provided so much hope and optimism for the future. Very complete visual account of the Fair with some text. I wish the pictures were larger with some color images as well (although the cost would increase). Perhaps a little more text about the Fair would have been better. Overall, a very good account of the '64 Worlds Fair which will no doubt bring back some good memories of a very different time.
A Great Primer To A Great Event!.......2005-08-14
You couldn't pick two finer experts on the 1964 New York World's Fair to put together this photo essay overview of this too-neglected event. Bill Young is the creator of the magnificent website devoted to the Fair, www.nywf64.com, where you will find all sorts of fascinating information about the Fair, while Bill Cotter has assembled the best collection of amateur Fair photos over the years. This book spotlights some of those photos and offers a great look at this event that I wish I had been alive to have gone too! Excellent job, my friends.
I wish I could have gone!.......2004-10-21
This book does an excellent job of describing the glitz, excitement and joyous excess that was known as the 1964 World's Fair. With great pictures and great writing this book elegantly handles the challenge of taking you on a whirlwind tour of the fair. May favorite part of the book is how it manages to weave facts about the fair, facts about the time period and unique insider information into the tapestry of the book.
In other words, I really enjoyed the book. It doesn't matter whether you were alive in 1964 or not, by the end of the book you'll be longing for a time when the future held so much promise. At the very least, you'll want a waffle.
Amazon.com
Having previously dissected the factual inaccuracies of a single bellicose talk show host in Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot, Al Franken takes his fight to a larger foe: President George W. Bush, the Bush Administration, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, and scores of other conservatives whom, he says, are playing loose with the facts. It's a lot of ground to cover, as evidenced by the 43 chapters in Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, but the results are often entertaining and insightful. Franken occupies a unique place in the modern political dialogue as perhaps the media's only comedy writer and performer who is also a Harvard fellow as well as a liberal political commentator. This unique and vaguely lonely position lends a charming quixotic quality to adventures such as a tense encounter with the Fox News staff at the National Press Club, a challenge to fisticuffs with National Review Editor Rich Lowry, and an oddly sweet admissions visit to ultra-conservative Bob Jones University (with a young research assistant posing as his son when Franken's real-life son refuses to participate in the charade). Less useful are comic book dramatizations of "Supply Side Jesus" and a fictitious Vietnam War story featuring the numerous righties who, Franken intimates, improperly avoided service. And Franken's criticisms of conservative talk show hosts Sean Hannity, O'Reilly, and columnist Coulter, while admirable in their attention to detail, fail to shed much new light on people who have built careers on broad arguments and relentless self-aggrandizement. But Franken is at his best, and most compellingly readable, when he backs off the wackiness and the personal grudges and writes about more personal matters such as the political circus surrounding the memorial service of the late Senator Paul Wellstone. But even on these more serious topics, Franken's wit is still present and, in fact, grows sharper. In a time when much political discourse is composed of rage and shouting, it's refreshing that Al Franken is able to shout in a witty manner. --John Moe
Book Description
America's funniest liberal takes on the issues, the politicians, and the pundits in one of the most anticipated books of the year. Once again, the author of Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations trains his subversive wit directly on the contemporary political scene, leaving the powers-that-be in tatters and his audience in hysterics. Al Franken thrives on being in the opposition, and now that the Republican party controls both the Oval Office and Congress, the gloves are off and the satire is fast and furious. Franken's specialty is using his targets' own words to make comedic and political points. Finding logical inconsistencies, factual errors, and doublespeak wherever he looks, Franken takes on and destroys the myth of liberal bias in the media, hoists the Bush White House on its own rhetorical petard, and punctures the mean-spirited sanctimony of such media darlings as Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, and host of post-Limbauth talk-radio gasbags. Timely, provocative, unfailingly honest, and always uproarious, Lies is sure to raise hackles and spark hilarity inside the Beltway and from sea to shining sea.
Download Description
"Al Franken, ""one of our savviest satirists"" (People), takes on the issues, the politicians, and the pundits in one of the most anticipated books of the year. For the first time since his own classic Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations, Al Franken trains his subversive wit directly on the contemporary political scene. Now, the ""master of political humor"" (Washington Times) destroys the myth of liberal bias in the media, and exposes how the Right shamelessly tries to deceive the rest of us. No one is spared as Al uses the Right's own words against them. Not the Bush administration and their rhetorical hypocrisy. Not Ann Coulter and her specious screeds. Not the new generation of talk-radio hosts, and not Bill O'Reilly, Roger Ailes, and the entire Fox network. This is the book Al Franken fans have been waiting for (and his foes have been dreading). Timely, provocative, unfailingly honest, and always funny, Lies is sure to become the most talked about book of political humor in 2003 and beyond."
Customer Reviews:
Another great book by Franken.......2007-09-22
This book while maybe not so fair and balanced does tell about the lies that people such as Sean Hannity, Anne Coulter, and Bill O'Reiley tell. This book is very funny escpecially the chapter when he and one of his TeamFranken crew went to Bob Jones University.
A very interesting read!
We NOW Know The Truth of it.......2007-09-15
Believe it or not, I was a registered Republican for decades. However, no longer. I think we need a little humor because the truth is so horrible to face. Using the fear of 9/11 and driving it into outrage to push an unfounded invasion into Iraq, the Republicans have earned us the disdain of all, including our own allies. We have also descended into astounding national debt. Our people and pets are being poisoned by imported food and toys (thanks to the "Fair Trade Agreement"). We also have fewer American businesses still in operation (Fenton Art Glass is closing after many generations of American glasswork). Also thanks to George Bush "Amnesty" plan (free citizenship for criminals), we are being invaded by millions of Illegal Aliens. NOW we know that people like Al Franken and others who humorously told the truth from the very start, were the actual real news reporters. I used to hate him and his ilk as Anti-American. How deluded could I have been?? Gee, and we thought Comedy Central's "Daily Report" was just fiction?? Check out their real news reporting with a humorous spin. Okay, the few people who still hold onto the strings of hope that George Bush can speak a modicum of truth will hate this book. I'm simply a realist AND an EX-Republican.
Funny look at shout shows . . ........2007-08-02
I loved Al's book. I thought it was a great mix of political analysis and satire. He takes aim at the shout shows like the O'Reilly Factor and most of the Fox Media lineup who have continually claimed that the media has liberal bias. He looks at this claim and others made by the get loud opinion crowd including O'Reilly and Coulter. He has worked hard along with "team Franken" a group of students from Harvard to debunk the factual misrepresentations of the Right wing media and fact check the issues.
He also pulls some silly stunts like pretenting to have a son/nephew who wants to attend Bob Jones University which is an non-acredited conservative christian University which until recently (after 2000) did not allow interracial dating. He and a member of "team Franken" go on a visit and ask questions until they are found out and feel really relieved because the students were so nice. I thought it was a funny look at the Right particularly the overblown egos of the Right wing media.
Unreadable.......2007-07-29
I didn't care that Franken lives in a leftist fantasyland in which he makes egregious mistakes on many pages, just as those he mistakenly defines as "conservative" makes mistakes on theirs. What I do care about is that this book is so excruciatingly political it is an unbearable bore. I couldn't read it, only glance though it looking for something interesting. I did find a few things, such as when Franken challenged girlyman Rich Lowry to a fight in his garage. That was funny, but it was about the only thing. For the most part this book is a flash-in-the-pan, and, thank God, will be forgotten.
Why the name-callin?.......2007-07-16
I won't as much as pick up this book, sounds like-smells like a lot of speculative bashing and reading into things that aren't really worth getting into! I second the nomination of impeachment of one William Jefferson Clinton! Godspeed!
Amazon.com
Author Erik Larson imbues the incredible events surrounding the 1893 Chicago World's Fair with such drama that readers may find themselves checking the book's categorization to be sure that The Devil in the White City is not, in fact, a highly imaginative novel. Larson tells the stories of two men: Daniel H. Burnham, the architect responsible for the fair's construction, and H.H. Holmes, a serial killer masquerading as a charming doctor. Burnham's challenge was immense. In a short period of time, he was forced to overcome the death of his partner and numerous other obstacles to construct the famous "White City" around which the fair was built. His efforts to complete the project, and the fair's incredible success, are skillfully related along with entertaining appearances by such notables as Buffalo Bill Cody, Susan B. Anthony, and Thomas Edison. The activities of the sinister Dr. Holmes, who is believed to be responsible for scores of murders around the time of the fair, are equally remarkable. He devised and erected the World's Fair Hotel, complete with crematorium and gas chamber, near the fairgrounds and used the event as well as his own charismatic personality to lure victims. Combining the stories of an architect and a killer in one book, mostly in alternating chapters, seems like an odd choice but it works. The magical appeal and horrifying dark side of 19th-century Chicago are both revealed through Larson's skillful writing. --John Moe
Book Description
Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds—a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium. Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake.
The
Devil in the White City draws the reader into a time of magic and majesty, made all the more appealing by a supporting cast of real-life characters, including Buffalo Bill, Theodore Dreiser, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and others. In this book the smoke, romance, and mystery of the Gilded Age come alive as never before.
Erik Larson’s gifts as a storyteller are magnificently displayed in this rich narrative of the master builder, the killer, and the great fair that obsessed them both.
To find out more about this book, go to http://www.DevilInTheWhiteCity.com.
From the Hardcover edition.
Download Description
In The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson, author of Isaac's Storm, tells the spellbinding true story of two men, an architect and a serial killer, whose fates were linked by the greatest fair in American history: the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, nicknamed "The White City."
Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America's rush toward the twentieth century.
The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair's brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country's most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C.
The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his "World's Fair Hotel" just west of the fairgrounds -- a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium.
Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake.
The Devil in the White City draws the reader into a time of magic and majesty, made all the more appealing by a supporting cast of real-life characters, including Buffalo Bill, Theodore Dreiser, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and others. In this book, the smoke, romance and mystery of the Gilded Age come alive as never before.
Erik Larson's gifts as a storyteller are magnificently displayed in this rich narrative of the master builder, the killer, and the great fair that obsessed them both.
"Engrossing... exceedingly well documented... utterly fascinating."
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
"A dynamic, enveloping book.... Relentlessly fuses history and entertainment to give this nonfiction book the dramtic effect of a novel.... It doesn't hurt that this truth is stranger than fiction."
THE NEW YORK TIMES
"So good, you find yourself asking how you could not know this already."
ESQUIRE
"Another successful exploration of American history.... Larson skillfully balances the grisly details with the far-reaching implications of the World's Fair."
USA TODAY
"As absorbing a piece of popular history as one will ever hope to find."
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
"Paints a dazzling picture of the Gilded Age and prefigure the American century to come."
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
"A wonderfully unexpected book... Larson is a historian... with a novelist's soul."
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
Customer Reviews:
Great book, though leaves a bit to be desired...........2007-10-09
I am not a huge reader (too busy with college) but this book really caught my eye and, let me tell you, I made time for it once I realized how good it was. The book is incredibly informative and it is immediately apparent that the author did an ENORMOUS amount of research. As one of the reviewers says on a page at the front of the book, you will be left wondering how you DIDN'T know these stories already (for example, you learn about the first Ferris wheel.)
All of that said, I was hoping for much more information about the serial killer aspect... the author would devote maybe 4 pages worth of Holmes for every 10 pages worth of the Chicago Fair. I was mistakenly led to believe that the ratio was about equal and throughout the book, kept hoping that the Fair's historical accounts would become less frequent and instead would be replaced with more of the true crime aspect. At the end of the book, I came to find out that there simply wasn't enough information about the crimes to fill the book as most readers might have liked.
In short, this book is excellent and I highly recommend it. Just be forewarned, it is much more about the Chicago World Fair (and in more detail than most people probably prefer) and less about the serial killer and his
Very interesting.......2007-10-01
The book goes into more detail than what I care for, but it is very very interesting in everything you learn about American History
Amazing.......2007-09-29
Belonging to a book club for several years, we all agreed this book rated as one of our top ten books. Not only was it historically accurate but it was written in a style that captivated the reader with a serial killer on the loose and a race against time to accomplish an almost impossible feat. A book to be read and reread.
discover your darker side.......2007-09-26
i read the book in less than a week - fascinating descriptions, great narrative, etc! this book is beyond fiction..
i especially enjoyed the description of chicago at the height of the "gilded age" and the workings of burnham, olmstead and others involved in the design/architecture and execution of the "white city" - i can't imagine anything of this scale happening in the current social and economic environments and its a pleasure to read about it
but more than anything, i looked forward to the holmes ("the devil") chapters. i'm not much of a rubber-necker, and this book provided me a first-hand experience in fascination-by-destruction. wow!!
So fantastic a tale, you won't believe it's true.......2007-09-24
Chicago, 1893: One of the best and worst years of the city's existence. On the one hand, it was the year of the World's Fair, when Chicago proved its worth to the world, and American culture was changed forever; on the other hand, it was the year of Dr. H. H. Holmes, a charmingly handsome young man who turned out to be one of the country's most sadistic serial killers. Larson tells the tales of Daniel Burnham, the architect behind the construction of the Fair, and Holmes, the evil mastermind who used the fair to satisfy his bloodlust. These two men, who never met, were intricately linked, and their story reads like the best of suspense fiction.
Larson's research is meticulous; his insight into a psychopathic mind is downright chilling. For most of the book he alternates chapters--here, Burnham; there, Holmes; and back and forth. He slips interesting facts into the mix, in just the right proportions to keep readers amused (who knew shredded wheat would stand the test of time?), while in other places hitting you with gut-wrenching facts that will encourage you to do further research on your own. Why Holmes isn't as well known as Dahmer or Bundy, we may never know; and why Burnham is oft-forgotten, while Frank Lloyd Wright (who, yes, has ties to the Fair) is a household name, remains a puzzling mystery. But thankfully, Erik Larson remembered, and wrote this engrossing, fact-drenched thriller about it. This is a tale so amazing, it'll have you doubting its veracity. But, have no fear--or, yes, be very afraid--this is a true story of human triumph, evil, and the forceful will that we call "humanity."
Book Description
In 1899 the United States, having announced its arrival as a world power during the Spanish-Cuban-American War, inaugurated a brutal war of imperial conquest against the Philippine Republic. Over the next five decades, U.S. imperialists justified their colonial empire by crafting novel racial ideologies adapted to new realities of collaboration and anticolonial resistance. In this pathbreaking, transnational study, Paul Kramer reveals how racial politics served U.S. empire, and how empire-building in turn transformed ideas of race and nation in both the United States and the Philippines.
Kramer argues that Philippine-American colonial history was characterized by struggles over sovereignty and recognition. In the wake of a racial-exterminist war, U.S. colonialists, in dialogue with Filipino elites, divided the Philippine population into "civilized" Christians and "savage" animists and Muslims. The former were subjected to a calibrated colonialism that gradually extended them self-government as they demonstrated their "capacities." The latter were governed first by Americans, then by Christian Filipinos who had proven themselves worthy of shouldering the "white man's burden." Ultimately, however, this racial vision of imperial nation-building collided with U.S. nativist efforts to insulate the United States from its colonies, even at the cost of Philippine independence. Kramer provides an innovative account of the global transformations of race and the centrality of empire to twentieth-century U.S. and Philippine histories.
Book Description
This exceptional chronicle takes readers on a visual tour of the glittering "white city" that emerged along the swampy south shore of Lake Michigan as a symbol of Chicago's rebirth and pride twenty-two years after the Great Fire.
The World's Columbian Exposition, which commemorated the 400th anniversary of Columbus's voyage to America, was held from April to October in 1893. The monumental event welcomed twenty-eight million visitors, covered six hundred acres of land, boasted dozens of architectural wonders, and was home to some sixty-five thousand exhibits from all over the world. From far and wide, people came to experience the splendors of the fair, to witness the magic sparkle of electric lights or ride the world's first Ferris wheel, known as the Eiffel Tower of Chicago.
Norman Bolotin and Christine Laing have assembled a dazzling photographic history of the fair. Here are panoramic views of the concourse--replete with waterways and gondolas, the amazing moving sidewalk, masterful landscaping and horticultural splendorsÐ-and reproductions of ads, flyers, souvenirs, and keepsakes. Here too are the grand structures erected solely for the fair, from the golden doorway of the Transportation Building to the aquariums and ponds of the Fisheries Building, as well as details such as menu prices, the cost to rent a Kodak camera, and injury and arrest reports from the Columbian Guard.
This unique volume tells the story of the World's Columbian Exposition from its conception and construction to the scientific, architectural, and cultural legacies it left behind, inviting readers to imagine what it would have been like to spend a week at the fair.
Customer Reviews:
Chicago Colombian Exposition.......2007-05-12
A thorough history, interestingly written and beautifully illustrated. A good follow-up to "Devil in the White City".
very interesting.......2005-06-22
I found this book quite fascinating. I have been reading Erik Larson's wonderful "The Devil in the White City" but since that comes with virtually no illustrations, I bought this book primarily for the photographs, of which it has a great many and which go a long way to conveying just how huge this fair was (there were 735,000+ visitors on the day that had the highest attendance rate).
It also fills in information Larson's book lacks about the exhibits themselves, the individual state and country buildings and the Midway as well as statistics on how much food was served every day and how many bathrooms were available plus it shows pictures of the moving sidewalk that took visitors who arrived by boat to the fair itself; the Xerxes telescope; many displays and decorations made out of corn and oranges; the foreigners who were part of the Midway attractions; the Wooded Island; the first automated paint sprayer (with which a crew of three was able to paint the interior of the entire Manufacturers and Liberal Arts Building in only six weeks); a lifesize statue of a wooly mammoth, then thought to have been the largest animal to have ever walked the earth; and several pictures of the Ferris Wheel under construction. It also has a table showing what attractions were available and how much they cost and one indicating which architect designed which building (something Larson's readers will appreciate).
The only real problem I had with the book (and the reason for four stars instead of five) is that it's printed on regular paper stock and not on glossy paper so the photographs are somewhat blurry and grainy and not as crisp as they would have been had the publisher used different paper. Also the book provides a copy of the map of the fairgrounds given by Montgomery Ward to it's customers but this map is too small plus it's printed so that part of it lies in the book's center crease. I think it would have been better if the publisher had had a map drawn and used that or had found one that provided more information. There is a three dimensional map of the Exposition available on the Web -- it would have been nice if something like that had been included as well since it's impossible to get a comprehensive, birdseye view of the Fair (nevermind one in relation to Chicago and the surrounding community) from just the photographs. There is also a bibliography and a somewhat incomplete index. I don't know how this book compares to other pictorial books on the Exposition but it was fine for what I needed and had lots of bits of interesting trivia besides.
Book Description
In the depths of the Great Depression, when America's future seemed bleak, nearly one hundred million people visited expositions celebrating the "century of progress." These fairs fired the national imagination and served as cultural icons on which Americans fixed their hopes for prosperity and power.
World of Fairs continues Robert W. Rydell's unique cultural history—begun in his acclaimed All the World's a Fair—this time focusing on the interwar exhibitions. He shows how the ideas of a few—particularly artists, architects, and scientists—were broadcast to millions, proclaiming the arrival of modern America—a new empire of abundance build on old foundations of inequality.
Rydell revisits several fairs, highlighting the 1926 Philadelphia Sesquicentennial, the 1931 Paris Colonial Exposition, the 1933-34 Chicago Century of Progress Exposition, the 1935-36 San Diego California Pacific Exposition, the 1936 Dallas Texas Centennial Exposition, the 1937 Cleveland Great Lakes and International Exposition, the 1939-40 San Francisco Golden Gate International Exposition, the 1939-40 New York World's Fair, and the 1958 Brussels Universal Exposition.
Customer Reviews:
World Fairs as Seen Through a Marxist Lens.......2004-09-21
If you want to know what the Worlds' Fairs would look like to a Marxist, then this is the book for you. The basic idea of Marxism is that Capitalism is an unsustainable system of "consumption" that relies on exploitation and imperialism to feed itself. The thesis of this book is that the Fairs were tools of the Bourgeois to enjoin the masses to become fully engaged in the imperialistic feeding frenzy that was Capitalism from 1850-1950. The meaning of the fairs is as broad an issue as the meaning of Capitalism and western civilization - you can't find the meaning of the fairs by looking only at the fairs themselves. Such an analysis naturally depends heavily on the context the author brings to the task - and Rydell's context is Marxism.
I loved this book........1999-02-02
Rydell posits that the world's fairs that occurred from the late 19th century until the mid-twentieth century were designed to promote corporate and government agendas of imperialism, and to inaugurate the populace into a culture of unchecked consumerism. After reading this book, I'm convinced.
Book Description
During World War II, Mom Chung's was the place to be in San Francisco. Soldiers, movie stars, and politicians gathered at her home to socialize, to show their dedication to the Allied cause, and to express their affection for Dr. Margaret Chung (1889-1959). The first known American-born Chinese female physician, Chung established one of the first Western medical clinics in San Francisco's Chinatown in the 1920s. She also became a prominent celebrity and behind-the-scenes political broker during World War II. Chung gained national fame when she began "adopting" thousands of soldiers, sailors, and flyboys, including Ronald Reagan, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, and Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr. A pioneer in both professional and political realms, Chung experimented in her personal life as well. She adopted masculine dress and had romantic relationships with other women, such as writer Elsa Gidlow and entertainer Sophie Tucker.
This is the first biography to explore Margaret Chung's remarkable and complex life. It brings alive the bohemian and queer social milieus of Hollywood and San Francisco as well as the wartime celebrity community Chung cultivated. Her life affords a rare glimpse into the possibilities of traversing racial, gender, and sexual boundaries of American society from the late Victorian era through the early Cold War period.
Customer Reviews:
A Woman Navigating Multiple, Simultaneous Boundary Lines.......2006-01-12
Dr. Wu astounds us by producing a work of biography that does something very rare in this age of standardized academic prose, she has produced an addictively readable volume. To tell the truth, even though I have lived in San Francisco for 25 years, I had never even heard of Mom Chung, but I guess if I lived here during World War II I would have been reading about her exploits every day.
One record after another, she smashed, despite the obvious disapproval of both the Chinese and white communities here. And then there's the gender thing. She adopted, as Dr. Yu shows us, a comically asexual pose, which made it humorous for hundreds of white men and women to call her "Mom," which would have implied that she had had sex when to look at her, and to survey her lack of marriage license, she had none. There's the secret!
The "fair-haired bastards" of the title were the war heroes, at first the pilots, then those who served in the Navy, then a bunch of "Kiwis" who Chung recognized for their work in the field supporting our men overseas. She attracted celebrities to her wherever she went, sort of like our own JT LeRoy in the present day. When she started out, she walked timidly, and it took a cunning and open-hearted woman like the poet Elsa Gidlow to see underneath the brim of her cloche and discover the Lesbian within. Gidlow's memoirs, from which Dr. Wu draws the story, reveal that Gidlow became Chung's patient pretty much to get that old countertransference going. And after a difficult operation, in which Gidlow nearly died, Chung finally admitted that she loved her.
Later on came an intense attachment to the "last of the red hot Mamas," Sophie Tucker. Chung destroyed Tucker's letters, but Tucker carefully preserved all of Chung's little love notes and tokens--thank Goodness, for otherwise we might never have guessed the lengths to which homophobia and sexual fear drove the love affair of these two celebrities deep underground. In a way it was a perfect pose. Chung nearly built Tucker her own shrine within her lavish apartment, so that whenever Tucker decided to visit San Francisco she would be pampered like a goddess. In one letter she hopes that Tucker wears a special nightgown, and "think of me as that nightgown," getting upclose and personal with the famous Tucker body. Sophie Tucker was then coasting on a formidable heterosexual reputation, having been married and divorced thrice by the time she got involved with Mom Chung. I read a whole biography of this notorious entertainer, and the name of Mom Chung never even made it to the index.
Thank the Lord for brave historians like Tzu-Chun Wu who no longer shy away from the uncomfortable truths about their subjects. How I wish that the bruited movie of Chung's life (starring Barbara Stanwyck in Chinese makeup) had really been made, in the long ago days of Mom Chung's celebrity!
Great Bio, not so Great Historical over view.......2005-11-25
Having had to read this book for a history class I wasn't sure about whether or not I would enjoy it. But once I got an understanding of whom Mom Chung was and her importance I really wanted to read the book. I'm glad I did because Chung's story is inspirational, being the first Chinese American Female Doctor. Also Chung was a lesbian (though not 100% proved one can infer this from the evidence.) At the beginning I was inspired by Chung's strength and guts, her breaking through barriers and fighting to be successful and true to herself.(Also managing to continue fighting after several rejections.) Though by the end of her life it seems as though she lost her spunk and drive and settles into the status quo image.
The author does a great job of explaining Chung's life and actually makes the ready feel her triumphs and loses. So from a biographical point of view this is a 5 star book. From the historical point of view it's not as good. She wanted to"...provide insight into the historical transformation of American norms regarding race, gender and sexuality over the course of her lifetime..." This might have to do with Chung being such a larger than life character it is easy to get lost in her and miss the general trends and changes that happened in her lifetime.
With that being said read the book!!!
Book Description
World's Fairs have introduced Americans to technologies such as telephones and X-rays, to futuristic architecture and transportation schemes, and to new and exotic forms of entertainment such as the Ferris Wheel and belly-dancing. Billed by their promoters as "encyclopedias of civilization," the expositions impressed tens of millions of fairgoers with model environments and utopian visions. Illustrated with archival photographs of fair buildings, exhibits, and souvenirs, this book surveys 150 years of these dazzling, culturally revealing events.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Review!!!!!.......2000-08-04
Rydell, Findling, and Pelle do a wonderful job of describing the influences that helped shape the World's Fairs and expositions held in the United States between 1853 and 1984. Initially designed to boost local economies, the fair promoters gradually shifted to more national agendas; imperialism, cold war, and capitalism. The book is a great resource for those not aware of how much impact these fairs have had on our country's development!
Books:
- Inside the Machine: An Illustrated Introduction to Microprocessors and Computer Architecture
- Introduction to Animal Science: Global, Biological, Social and Industry Perspectives (3rd Edition)
- Introduction to Animal Science: Global, Biological, Social and Industry Perspectives (3rd Edition)
- Islam: A Short History (Modern Library Chronicles)
- Landscaping Principles and Practices
- Lean Manufacturing Implementation: A Complete Execution Manual for Any Size Manufacturer
- Love in a Torn Land: Joanna of Kurdistan: The True Story of a Freedom Fighter's Escape from Iraqi Vengeance
- Love in a Torn Land: Joanna of Kurdistan: The True Story of a Freedom Fighter's Escape from Iraqi Vengeance
- Mandated Landscape: British Imperial Rule in Palestine 1929-1948
- Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
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- Behavioral Law and Economics
- The Chemistry of Organolithium Compounds, The Chemistry of Organolithium Compounds
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- Breeder: Real-Life Stories from the New Generation of Mothers
- 55,000 plus Baby Names: A great selection of popular and unusual names from around the world
- Jam: Tokyo-London
- Train From Marietta
- Wayside Plants of the Islands: A Guide to the Lowland Flora of the Pacific Islands
Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Her Royal Spyness
Oh Danny Boy (A Molly Murphy Mystery)
Murder In Chinatown
Evanly Bodies (Constable Evans Mysteries)
In Like Flynn : A Molly Murphy Series (Molly Murphy)
