Comic Art in America by Stephen Becker

Cartoons did not originate in the United States, but Americans were innovative in the art, and its artists invented the newspaper comic strip and comic book. Stephen Becker wrote a survey of American comics of all types from their origins until his book was published in 1959: Comic Art in America.

Becker covers every type of cartoon in the book. Comic strips get a lot of attention because that is where a lot of the development occurred and gave rise to something distinctly American. Though comic strips are a thread throughout, Becker devotes chapters to editorial cartoons, single-panel humor and even animation.

Many of the comics Becker discusses are still published today, such as Beatle Bailey and Blondie. Others are well-known because of their former popularity or lasting influence: Krazy Kat, Terry and the Pirates, Flash Gordon. Others are largely forgotten, even if they were pioneers of their time that shaped the work of others or the popular taste. Fans of particular types of cartooning may notice omissions that seem glaring, at least in hindsight; the chapter on comic books makes no mention of Will Eisner, though perhaps his fame stems more form later work.

Of course, the intent was not to be exhaustive. It’s a single volume, not an encyclopedia. As a survey for a general audience, it works very well. At the time, it probably reminded readers of old favorites that had fallen out of print. It might introduce modern readers to those old masters for the first time. Necessarily it does not address some of the great work that came out after it was published; I suspect Becker would have been delighted by Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes, as many of us are.

Becker was primarily a fiction writer. Comic Art in America is very informative, but it is not primarily an academic book. Neither does Becker come off as entirely fan-ish, though he certainly has the tone of someone who enjoys comics and finds them interesting, especially humor and editorial comics from newspapers and magazines. He mixes commentary with history and spices things up gossipy tidbits.

The book was published in a larger format to accommodate reproduction of comics that originally appeared in an even larger broadsheet newspaper. Though it has the look of a coffee table book, it is not dominated by images. The images are an accompaniment to the text. Even so, one can enjoy it for the comics reproduced in it, though many are of their time and may not make much sense without the context provided by Becker.

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Becker, Stephen. Comic Art in America: A Social History of the Funnies, the Political Cartoons, Magazine Humor, Sporting Cartoons and Animated Cartoons. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1959.

Scan Artist by Marcia Biederman

When I want to find some information, I can pull my cell phone out of my pocket and search for it using Google (or some other search engine, but probably Google). I can remember a time when that was not an option. If the information I needed wasn’t in the dictionary or encyclopedia I had at home (which was already of date in some areas), I’d have to go to the library for additional references or—heaven forbid—the morgue of a newspaper office. Getting useful information was not a trivial affair. The generation before mine that saw a pre-Internet explosion of printed information after World War II especially felt the difficulty of keeping up. Evelyn Wood was there with an answer; Marcia Biederman tells her story in Scan Artist.

Evelyn Wood did not invent speed reading. She did not even like the term. However, for decades her name and face was more strongly associated with it than any other person. Though she built her reputation on being a school teacher, she never was not a regular classroom teacher (she was a school counselor) and she was not a reading specialist. She had a master’s degree in speech, earned under the direction of a professor who a studied theater.

Theater may be the lens for looking at Wood’s career. She started writing and staging plays when she was in high school and a college undergraduate. Many of these had religious themes related to her Mormon faith. When she was in Germany, where her husband served as president of the Mormon mission in Frankfurt as the Nazis began their aggressions, she fell in love with the opera and cajoled her way into back stage of the opera house. She began bringing what she learned of stagecraft into her own productions.

Back in the U.S. the Woods put Evelyn’s theatrical skills to work as lecturers on their European experience. They changed their focus as American sentiments shifted from Germany to Britain. They also put a pretty heavy spin on the Mormon relationship with the Nazis and greatly embellished the dangers they face leaving Germany.

Evelyn Wood’s success as a seller of her speed-reading system was largely built on such theatrics and embellishments. She claimed student could read thousands of words per minute; the faster one read the better their comprehension. (The fastest people can actually read is about 900 words per minute. Anything faster is skimming, and comprehension suffers when one skims). She managed to get endorsements from senators and she encouraged, or at least never corrected, the misconception that she was tied to John F. Kennedy and his reportedly fast reading speed. (Ted Kennedy took her course as a senator, and staffers in the Kennedy, Nixon and Carter administrations took the course, including Jimmy Carter himself, though Wood was not the teacher.)

The company she started changed hands and business models several times. A lot of money was made with her name and methods, and in the sale and resale of the company, but the Woods received only a small portion of it. Even so, she was ready to promote herself, her methods and the company that still paid her a consulting fee. She slowed down, but continued to make appearances and accept interview requests even after suffering cancer and a stroke.

While one may sympathize with her, especially in her illness later in life, the Evelyn Wood presented by Biederman is not easy to like. The Wood adopted a teenage girl largely to have a live-in nanny for their natural daughter when they moved to Germany; they never really acknowledge their adopted daughter or even saw her much once she was an adult. Wood was in some ways a con artist who played on the insecurities of her marks, some who were never knocked in spite of the mounting evidence that her program was at best an overprice lesson in skimming.

Wood found a way to take advantage of the insecurity of her day. She built a brand on it. While primarily a biography of Wood, Scan Artist reveals interesting things about America of the time and the obsession with self-improvement. It has not disappeared. Speed-reading apps still claim to greatly increase both speed and comprehension. TED-talkers claim to read a book or more a day. The Internet makes it easy to acquire a shallow knowledge of almost anything quickly, so perhaps people have become satisfied with what they can learn from skimming hundreds of books a year. Deep learning and understanding remains slow and effortful.

Biederman, Marcia. Scan Artist: How Evelyn Wood Convinced the World that Speed-Reading Worked. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2019.

Judges

The book of Judges summarizes the history of the Israelite nation between the passing of Joshua and the establishment of a monarchy.  At this time, the nation was ostensibly a theocracy; the people were to follow God’s law.  The tribes largely governed themselves, occasionally even breaking into civil war.  As needed, God provided judges to provide civil and military leadership.

The people were supposed to be taking hold of their inheritance from God, both the land and the moral heritage passed down from Moses and Joshua.  However, as they mingled with foreigners and became satisfied with their possessions, they fell to temptations to idolatry and immoral living.  In the absence of powerful human authorities, such as prophets and kings, people did whatever they liked and often they liked sin.  In these times, God would withdraw his blessing from the people and allow foreign nations to overtake them.

This theme recurs throughout Judges.  As generations pass and people became satisfied, they would forget their need for God and fall into seeking to gratify themselves, with few scruples about how they do it.  God would withdraw his blessing from the immoral nation and it would fall into the hands of foreign powers.  When the people were oppressed to the end of their endurance, they would repent and call out to God.  He would send a judge who would rescue the people from their oppressors.  This would seem to be a message on God’s judgment, but it is equally about his mercy.  Suffering that brings us to God, the ultimate good, is better than an easy slide into destruction.

Some of the most famous names and stories of the Bible appear in this book.  Deborah was a prophetess and judge who was a woman leader.  Gideon famously tested God by putting out a fleece and overthrowing the Midian army with just 300 men.  The record of Samson’s feats is here, including his tragic affair with Delilah and his final triumph over the Philistines.  The story of Samson and Delilah was popular enough to be adapted to film, possibly because the suggestion of Biblical imprimatur permitted the depiction of a spicy tale.

Much of the book is devoted to the story of powerful, critical, or interesting judges like Deborah, Gideon and Samson.  The reigns of some judges are summarized in short paragraphs.  We approach history in a similar fashion now.  If some event or person was very important, exciting, interesting, strange or juicy, we might find a dozen books on the subject in the library.  Other things get a brief article in an encyclopedia, or a very short entry that Wikipedia says is inadequately documented.

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Dreams of Iron and Steel by Deborah Cadbury & The Lighthouse Stevensons by Bella Bathurst

In Dreams of Iron and Steel (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), Deborah Cadbury tells the stories of seven great works that cover over a century of engineering history. Originally published in Great Britain as Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, the book was a companion to a BBC television series. The projects covered vary widely from a sewer built under a metropolis to a bridge that towered above the skyline of its day.

The oldest of these (still standing like all but one of the other projects) is the Bell Rock lighthouse. The Bell Rock sank many ships that sought shelter from North Sea storms in Scotland’s Firth of Forth. Robert Stevenson, grandfather of author Robert Louis Stevenson, designed and oversaw the construction of a tower on it. The rock was a formidable construction site. It sat eleven miles from land. High tide covered it with as much as 16 feet of water. Low tide exposed an area only 250 by 130 feet. Yet Stevenson and his men built a 100-foot, stone tower on it. They did it 200 years ago.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, several wonders were built almost at once. The Great Eastern, built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was twice the size of any other ship. Though a commercial failure, it set the standard for the next generation of ships.

Brunel launched his ship into a dirty and diseased Thames. Joseph Bazalgette sought to make the river safer for London residents. He built sewers under an ancient city that had grown to 2.5 million people and sprawled over 80 square miles.

In the American West, rival firms raced across the continent to build a railroad that would unite a nation recovering from civil war. In New York, John and Washington Roebling tackled the broad East River with their Brooklyn Bridge. They risked their lives and reputations on the longest span of the day and a material untested in bridges—steel.

The twentieth century inaugurated bigger feats. First proposed in 1879 by Vicomte Ferdinand de Lesseps of France, builder of the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal defeated most of those tried to build it. Even the United States poked at the mountains in futility until John Stevens, a railroad engineer, upgraded the infrastructure and equipment. When Stevens left the canal, a frustrated Theodore Roosevelt put military officers in charge. Lieutenant Colonel George Goethels, an engineer with extensive lock and dam experience, saw the canal through to its completion shortly before World War I.

The final project, America’s “damn big dam”, was build during the Depression. Hoover Dam was huge and constructed under difficult conditions. But construction engineer Frank “Hurry up” Crowe pushed and planned to get it done early and under budget.

Cadbury treats each project separately. However, they are linked by common elements.

Tragedy and setbacks touched each one. Thousands of men, usually poor laborers and sometimes children, were killed or injured to make these huge structures. They were beset by lack of financing, reluctance to try new methods and materials, bankrupt contractors, political opposition, corruption, greed, prejudice, and other human imperfections.

At their best, these engineers and their wonders are linked by the same qualities that appear in the best of engineering today. They had a vision to make people safer, healthier, richer, and freer. They created solutions to immense problems.

Robert Stevenson’s triumph at Bell Rock won the confidence of the Northern Lighthouse Board. It also launched an association between the Stevenson family and Scottish lighthouses that lasted four generations. During their tenures in the office of engineer for the board, Stevenson and his sons dominated the design, construction, and operation of the lights. Bella Bathurst tells their story in The Lighthouse Stevensons (New York: HarperCollins, 1999).

This book has its own kind of variety: technical, professional, and personal. It covers the construction and technology of several lighthouses, the masterpieces of Robert and his three sons. They not only built towers, but also improved their design and the design of the lamps, reflectors, optics, and mechanical systems that operated in them. One even studied the waves that assaulted their works.

It shows that engineering is more than simply design and construction. The Stevensons were also managers, fundraisers, businessmen, public servants, purchasing agents, manufacturers, contractors, and more. Their work included a broad section of what engineers do.

The book is also a biography of these four men that reveals the dynamics of the family. Robert insisted his sons join the family profession and business. Only one, David, seemed to take to it naturally. Only David’s sons filled the next generation of lighthouse Stevensons. Alan and Tom were more inclined to work in literature and the arts. Alan proved himself to be a capable engineer by building a 138-foot light at Skerryvore that could withstand the elements and exhibit a simple beauty. He became so disabled by disease, Bathurst suggests it was muscular sclerosis, that he gave up his work with the lighthouses. He managed to work irregularly as a writer. His works include and encyclopedia article on lighthouses and a translation of Greek poems. Tom shared Alan’s artistic leaning, but not his intensity and focus. He and David eventually divided the engineering work for the Northern Lights.

Not everyone is cut out to be an engineer, of course. As Robert Louis Stevenson said about his internship in the profession, “He is a wise youth, to be sure, who can balance one part of genuine life against two parts of drudgery between four walls and for the sake of one, manfully accept the other.” But some managed to catch what Marion Allen, a laborer on the Hoover Dam, called constructitis. “Sometimes one thinks he is cured,” said Allen, “only to have a relapse when he goes by fresh concrete or catches the smell of fresh sawdust from new lumber. Anyone with this affliction has to start construction of some kind, even of only to dig a hole and fill it up again.”

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