Free Air is a 1919 novel written by Sinclair Lewis. A silent film adaptation of the novel was also released on April 30, 1922. The film starred Tom Douglas as Milt Daggett and Marjorie Seaman as Claire Boltwood.
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"This cheerful little road novel, published in 1919, is about Claire Boltwood, who, in the early days of the 20th century, travels by automobile from New York City to the Pacific Northwest, where she falls in love with a nice, down-to-earth young man and gives up her snobbish Estate." (From the Book Stub)
From a critical perspective, Free Air is consistent with Sinclair Lewis's lean towards egalitarian politics, which he displays in his other works (most notably in It Can't Happen Here). Examples of his politics in Free Air are found in Lewis's emphasis on the heroic role played by the book's protagonist, Milt Dagget, a working class everyman type. Conversely, Lewis presents nearly every upper-class character in Claire Boltwood's world (including her railroad-mogul father) as snobby elitists. The story also champions the democratic nature of the automobile versus the more aristocratic railroad travel. Lewis's emphasis on the freedom which automobiles would eventually give the working and middle classes bolsters the egalitarian, democratic aesthetic. Free Air is one of the first novels about the road trip, a subject around which the Beats (most notably Jack Kerouac) would build a cult following in the mid-20th century.
Composer Ferde Grofe used the novel as the basis for the music to his adventurous composition Free Air.
In the HBO series Boardwalk Empire, set initially in 1920, Jimmy and his girlfriend Pearl are reading Free Air. The 18-year-old Chicago prostitute Pearl hopes to head West like the heroine, along with Jimmy.
Egalitarianism, or equalitarianism, is a school of thought within political philosophy that builds from the concept of social equality, prioritizing it for all people. Egalitarian doctrines are generally characterized by the idea that all humans are equal in fundamental worth or moral status. Egalitarianism is the doctrine that all citizens of a state should be accorded exactly equal rights.
Harry Sinclair Lewis was an American writer and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, which was awarded "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of characters." He is best known for his novels Main Street (1920), Babbitt (1922), Arrowsmith (1925), and It Can't Happen Here (1935).
James John Walker, known colloquially as Beau James, was mayor of New York City from 1926 to 1932. A flamboyant politician, he was a liberal Democrat and part of the powerful Tammany Hall machine. He was forced to resign during a corruption scandal.
Dodsworth is a satirical novel by American writer Sinclair Lewis, first published by Harcourt Brace & Company in March 1929. Its subject, the differences between US and European intellect, manners, and morals, is one that frequently appears in the works of Henry James.
Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. was an American writer, political activist and the 1934 Democratic Party nominee for Governor of California who wrote nearly 100 books and other works in several genres. Sinclair's work was well known and popular in the first half of the 20th century, and he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1943.
The Jungle is a 1906 novel by the American journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair (1878–1968). The novel portrays the harsh conditions and exploited lives of immigrants in the United States in Chicago and similar industrialized cities. Sinclair's primary purpose in describing the meat industry and its working conditions was to advance socialism in the United States. However, most readers were more concerned with several passages exposing health violations and unsanitary practices in the American meat packing industry during the early 20th century, which greatly contributed to a public outcry which led to reforms including the Meat Inspection Act. Sinclair said of the public reaction, "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach."
The Three Represents or the important thought of Three Represents is a guiding socio-political theory within China credited to Jiang Zemin, which was ratified by the Communist Party of China (CPC) at the Sixteenth Party Congress in 2002. The Three Represents defines the role of the CPC; it stresses that the party must always represent the requirements for developing China's advanced productive forces, the orientation of China's advanced culture and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people. Jiang Zemin first introduced his theory on 25 February 2000 while on an inspection tour in Maoming, Guangdong province.
John Atkinson Hobson was an English economist and social scientist. Hobson is best known for his writing on imperialism, which influenced Vladimir Lenin and his theory of underconsumption.
It Can't Happen Here is a 1935 dystopian political novel by American author Sinclair Lewis. It describes the rise of a US dictator similar to how Adolf Hitler gained power. The novel was adapted into a play by Lewis and John C. Moffitt in 1936.
Arrowsmith is a novel by American author Sinclair Lewis, first published in 1925. It won the 1926 Pulitzer Prize. Lewis was greatly assisted in its preparation by science writer Paul de Kruif, who received 25% of the royalties on sales, although Lewis was listed as the sole author.
The Progressive Era (1896–1916) was a period of widespread social activism and political reform across the United States of America that spanned the 1890s to World War I. Progressive reformers were typically middle-class society women or Christian ministers. The main objectives of the Progressive movement were addressing problems caused by industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and political corruption. Social reformers were primarily middle-class citizens who targeted political machines and their bosses. By taking down these corrupt representatives in office, a further means of direct democracy would be established. They also sought regulation of monopolies through methods such as trustbusting and corporations through antitrust laws, which were seen as a way to promote equal competition for the advantage of legitimate competitors. They also advocated for new government roles and regulations, and new agencies to carry out those roles, such as the FDA.
Social class is an important theme for historians of the United States fordecades. The subject touches on many other elements of American history such as that of changing U.S. education, with Greater education attainment leading to expanding household incomes for many social groups. The overall level of prosperity grew greatly in the U.S. through the 20th century as well as the 21st century, anchored in changes such as growing American advances in science and technology with American inventions such as the phonograph, the portable electric vacuum cleaner, and so on. Yet much of the debate has focused lately on whether social mobility has fallen in recent decades as income inequality has risen, what scholars such as Katherine S. Newman have called the "American nightmare."
The social novel, also known as the social problemnovel, is a "work of fiction in which a prevailing social problem, such as gender, race, or class prejudice, is dramatized through its effect on the characters of a novel". More specific examples of social problems that are addressed in such works include poverty, conditions in factories and mines, the plight of child labor, violence against women, rising criminality, and epidemics because of over-crowding, and poor sanitation in cities.
Proletarian literature refers here to the literature created by left-wing writers mainly for the class-conscious proletariat. Though the Encyclopædia Britannica states that because it "is essentially an intended device of revolution", it is therefore often published by the Communist Party or left wing sympathizers, the proletarian novel has also been categorized without any emphasis on revolution, as a novel "about the working classes and working-class life; perhaps with the intention of making propaganda". This different emphasis may reflect a difference between Russian, American and other traditions of working-class writing, with that of Britain. The British tradition was not especially inspired by the Communist Party, but had its roots in the Chartist movement, and socialism, amongst others. Furthermore, writing about the British working-class writers, H Gustav Klaus, in The Socialist Novel: Towards the Recovery of a Tradition (1982) suggested that "the once current [term] 'proletarian' is, internationally, on the retreat, while the competing concepts of 'working-class' and 'socialist' continue to command about equal adherence".
The Good Companions is a novel by the English author J. B. Priestley.
The Tacoma Eastern Railroad was officially established by John F. Hart and George E. Hart in 1891. The enterprising lumberman received leases from Pierce County to harvest lumber from sections of a local school district. By 1890, most available timber near navigable water had been harvested. Sawmill industries had traditionally used the Puget Sound to float their wares to schooner captains, which can then be transported to markets, typically in San Francisco. To accommodate this new dilemma, the J.F Hart and Company began planning and construction for the Tacoma Eastern Railroad
This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Detroit, Michigan.
Benjamin Hanford was an American socialist politician during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A printer by trade, Hanford is best remembered for his 1904 and 1908 runs for Vice President of the United States on the ticket of the Socialist Party of America, running next to Presidential nominee Eugene V. Debs. Hanford was also the creator of the fictional character "Jimmie Higgins," a prototypical Socialist rank-and-filer whose silent work on the unglamorous tasks needed by any political organization made the group's achievements possible — a character later reprised in a novel by Upton Sinclair.
The Man Who Knew Coolidge is a 1928 satirical novel by Sinclair Lewis. It features the return of several characters from Lewis' previous works, including George Babbitt and Elmer Gantry. Additionally, it sees a return to the familiar territory of Lewis' fictional American city of Zenith, in the state of Winnemac. Presented as six long, uninterrupted monologues by Lowell Schmalz, a travelling salesman in office supplies, the eponymous first section was originally published in The American Mercury in 1927.
Free Air is a 1922 American silent comedy drama film directed by Edward H. Griffith and starring Tom Douglas, Marjorie Seaman and Henry G. Sell. It is an adaptation of the 1919 novel Free Air by Sinclair Lewis.
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