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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “A Tree Grows In Brooklyn” by Betty Smith
Kate’s 2¢: “A Tree Grows In Brooklyn” by Betty Smith
“A Tree Grows In Brooklyn” by Betty Smith
saying…
Maria Tucci did a good job of narrating this tory for us. Her slight variations of dialects added to our listening enjoyment and character recognition. .
I enjoyed this snapshot of life for this plucky child growing up under dire circumstances. The image of a tree struggling to grow in cement is an apt metaphor for the child’s existence.
A few take-aways:
–The one tree in Francie’s yard…was called the Tree of Hevan. No matter where its seed fell, it made a tree that struggled to reach the sky.
–In the old country a man is driven by the past of his father. Here, in this country, he belongs to the future…He can be what he will.
–The child must have the valuable thing called imagination…to have a secret world.
–Everything struggles to live…that tree grows out of the grate…it gets no sun and only water when it rains. It’s strong, because its struggle makes it that way.
–The sad thing is knowing that nerve would get them no where in the world.
–They conform to nothing but what was essential to their being able to live in that world.
–They purchased a two-foot fir tree growing in a wooden tub…It has roots…They put it on the fire escape.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Betty Smith (born Elisabeth Lillian Wehner; December 15, 1896 – January 17, 1972) was an American playwright and novelist, who wrote the 1943 bestseller A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
Early years[edit]
Smith was born Elisabeth Lillian Wehner on December 15, 1896, in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York to first-generation German-Americans John C. Wehner, a waiter,[1] and Katherine (or Catherine) Hummel.[2] She had a younger brother, William, and a younger sister, Regina.[3] At the time of her birth the family was living at 207 Ewen Street (now Manhattan Avenue). When she was four, they were living at 227 Stagg Street, and would move several times to various tenements on Montrose Avenue and Hopkins Street[4] before settling in a tenement on the top floor of 702 Grand Street. It was the Grand Street tenement that served as the setting for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.[5]
As a child, Smith developed an early passion for the written word, and at age eight she received an A for a school composition. “I knew then,” she was reported as saying, “that I would write a book one day.”[6] She made great use of the then-new public library near her home on Leonard Street,[7] and at age 11, had two poems published in a school publication.[6] Smith attended Public School 49 through fourth grade, then transferred to PS 18, which she disliked, before wangling her way into out-of-district PS 23 in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where she finished eighth grade. At this point in her life, she was compelled to quit school by her mother and to go to work to support the family. She was 14. Four years later, at age 18, endeavoring to further her education, she discovered she could attend Girls’ High School in Brooklyn during the day while, at the same time, work a night job in Manhattan. But after two years of this rigorous schedule, she quit school because a well paying job she had accepted with the United States Postal Service required her to work days.[8]
In her teenage years, Smith was an active member at the Jackson Street Settlement House, operated by the School Settlement Association. Offering a diverse range of after school social activities, the settlement house became one of Smith’s favorite destinations.[9] Of particular interest were classes in play writing, as well as acting and other theatrical activities. It was at the settlement house in 1917 that she met her future first husband, George H. E. Smith, the coach of her debate team and a fellow German-American, whose family name had been changed during WWI from Schmidt.[10] It is claimed by some it was likely at the Jackson Street Settlement House, rather than near her apartment, that the tree grew which gave name to her best-known novel,[11] but this assertion is unsubstantiated.
Marriage and motherhood[edit]
In 1919, after moving briefly to Richmond Hill, Queens, with her mother and stepfather, she joined George Smith in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he pursued a law degree at the University of Michigan. They married October 18, 1919.[12] During the couple’s extended stay in Ann Arbor, Smith gave birth to two girls and then waited until they were in school before endeavoring to complete her education. Because she had only completed two years of high school, Smith first enrolled in Ann Arbor High School, even though the principal thought it “unusual for a married woman to be a high school junior but could find no law against it.”[13] However, she again was not able to graduate due to her husband finding work in Belding, Michigan, and later Detroit. Although George Smith’s career was thriving, he found the practice of law unfulfilling. As a result, they decided to return to Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan to “start over,” with George studying political science, with an aim toward a career in politics.[13] Although she had not finished high school, the university allowed her to take classes as a special student without matriculating. Smith began to take her writing more seriously, realizing it could be a career. She honed her composition and journalism skills, submitting articles and recipes to newspapers as well as writing plays. Despite family money worries, instead of taking part-time jobs as she had before she continued with her writing endeavors.
In 1933, Betty and George H.E. Smith legally separated, and before the start of World War II, in 1938, they divorced. Although divorced, she continued to use the Smith surname throughout her writing career.
Theater and playwriting[edit]
From a young age, Smith had a deep and abiding interest in stage theater. She and her younger brother Willie regularly attended Saturday matinees at Brooklyn theaters for ten cents each, which allowed them to stand in the gallery. In a later autobiographical statement, Smith noted:
In all the years of growing up, I saw at least one play a week. I ran errands, made childish sacrifices of penny candy, tended babies, brought back deposit bottles. I had one objective: To get together a dime a week to see the Saturday matinee at one of three Brooklyn stock companies in our neighborhood.[14]
In 1916, Smith was able to see Sarah Bernhardt perform as part of her farewell tour of the United States. Despite Bernhardt having lost a leg to infection, her memories of the performance and of Bernhardt’s “lovely speaking voice and her limpid gestures” remained everlasting.[15]
University of Michigan and Yale[edit]
At the University of Michigan, Smith audited a number of journalism and playwriting courses and was a student in some of the classes of Professor Kenneth Thorpe Rowe. Under the guidance of Rowe, she wrote several plays, including the three-act Jonica Starrs, a story of adultery and the break-up of a marriage. The play won the Long Play Contest of the University of Michigan’s Division of English.[16] It was given a full production in Ann Arbor in June 1930.
Smith’s life reached a turning point when she won the University of Michigan’s Avery Hopwood Award for her full length play Francie Nolan, [17] which she later re-titled Becomes A Woman when she applied for copyright.[18][19] With the award, Smith received $1,000[20][21] a considerable amount of money in the early 1930s, but, perhaps more importantly, public attention for her work. However, Becomes A Woman wouldn’t be produced until 2023 when Mint Theater Company premiered the play.[22]
With the conferring of the Hopwood Award, Smith was invited to study drama at Yale University, where, under the tutelage of the renowned teacher George Pierce Baker, she wrote several plays during her two-year fellowship. At this time, she met a budding playwright, Robert V. Finch, known as “Bob,” who became a close confidante and companion. With outside pressures mounting, particularly money concerns as the fellowship had ended, her studies at Yale came to an end in the spring of 1934. Moreover, she deeply missed her children, who had been placed with her sister’s family on Long Island.
Because Smith never completed high school, she was unable to formally matriculate at the University of Michigan. As a result, she never earned a Bachelor of Arts degree, despite having taken more than enough courses. And without the B.A., she was unable to earn the Master of Fine Arts degree at Yale.
Federal Theatre Project[edit]
With the end of her drama studies at Yale, Smith and her children returned to live briefly in her mother’s house in Woodside, Queens. In 1935, an opportunity with the Works Projects Administration fortuitously arose, and Smith began working for the Federal Theatre Project as a play reader. In May 1936, she and three other Federal Theatre Project members, including Bob Finch, were shifted to Chapel Hill, North Carolina to participate in regional theater activities. It was in Chapel Hill that Smith finally found a place to call home, and despite continuing struggles with money, she began to write more earnestly.
Novelist[edit]
In the late 1930s, Smith began to shift her attention from play writing to attempting a novel. Encouraged by her longtime friend, playwright Bob Finch, as well as her writing group, she turned her eye toward a milieu she was familiar: the tenements and streets of Brooklyn. In total, Smith wrote four published novels during her lifetime, three of which take Brooklyn as a setting. Her first novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, was published in 1943. The book became an immediate bestseller and catapulted Smith to fame. Four years later, in 1947, the novel Tomorrow Will Be Better appeared. It would be another 11 years before Maggie-Now, her third book, was published in 1958. Smith’s fourth and final novel, Joy in the Morning appeared in 1963.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn[edit]
Main article: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (novel)
While living and working in Chapel Hill, Smith produced a novel with the working title of They Lived in Brooklyn. The work was rejected by several publishers before Harper and Brothers showed an interest in 1942. Working with Harper editors Smith substantially revised the novel, trimming characters, dialogue, and scenes, while selectively adding others. Finally, the book was accepted for publication and was released in 1943 with the title, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Smith later acknowledged the novel and its heroine Francie Nolan were largely based on her own life and experiences.[23] The novel is often categorized under the Bildungsroman literary genre.
In 1944, 20th Century Fox adapted the novel into a film directed by theater director Elia Kazan. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn starred James Dunn, Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, and Peggy Ann Garner, who won a Special Academy Award for Outstanding Child Actress of 1945. James Dunn’s performance as Johnny Nolan, Francie’s father, won him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The film also received a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.
In 1974, a second film adaptation was released. In the early 1950s, Smith teamed with George Abbott to write the book for the 1951 musical adaptation of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
Tomorrow Will Be Better[edit]
Smith’s second book, Tomorrow Will Be Better, was published in 1947. Set in the tenements of 1920s Brooklyn, the novel presents a realistic portrayal of young adults who seek a brighter future. Published just four years after A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, the second book naturally drew critical comparisons to the first because both novels dealt with family life in Brooklyn and the struggle with poverty. Margy Shannon, the central character in Tomorrow Will be Better, is from a poor family with a dominant mother. She meets and is courted by Frankie, a fellow Brooklynite, also contending with poverty. They strive to improve their lot, attempting to overcome the many personal and financial obstacles in their way.
Tomorrow Will Be Better was published to mixed reviews. It received a positive notice in The New York Times, which noted the work is noticeably different in spirit from Smith’s first book and praised Smith’s writing style as “remarkable for its unpretentiousness—an easy, tidy, direct kind of prose which calls no attention to itself”.[24] Other reviews, however, were less warm, often judging the novel as “gloomy”.
Maggie-Now[edit]
Maggie-Now was published in 1958.
Joy in the Morning[edit]
Joy in the Morning, Smith’s fourth, and last, novel appeared in 1963. The novel was adapted into the 1965 film of the same name.
Personal life[edit]
As a child, Smith was called Lizzie, but because she had difficulty pronouncing her z’s, her family took to calling her Liddie.[25] She had a younger brother, William (b. 1898) and a younger sister, Regina (b. 1903). Her relationship with her father John was warm and loving even though he was an alcoholic who only provided sporadically for his family. John Wehner died December 21, 1913, at the age of 40.[26]
In 1918, her mother Catherine married a second time to Michael Keogh, an Irishman 13 years her senior who worked in the city’s public works department. The marriage brought long needed financial stability to the family. Both William and Regina assumed the Keogh surname, and Lizzie, due to her age, did not. In either 1918 or early 1919, around the age of 22, Smith may have suffered the trauma of sexual abuse. Although she never directly identified anyone, her later correspondence and writings suggest the involvement of her stepfather Michael Keogh.[27] Additionally, after leaving the Keogh household in 1919, she returned infrequently, and then only briefly, until Keogh died in 1933.
Smith married three times. Her first marriage at age 23 was to George H.E. Smith on October 18, 1919, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She had met George in 1917 at the Jackson Street Settlement House and then joined him in Ann Arbor where they quickly wed. The couple had two children: Nancy Jean (b. 1922) and Mary Elizabeth (1924–1979). Due mainly to her husband’s infidelity, Betty and George separated and then divorced in 1938.[28] Her second marriage was to Joseph Piper Jones, a serviceman and editor she met in Chapel Hill. They married August 7, 1943 in Norfolk, Virginia. By June 1951, the marriage, which produced no children, was in trouble, and Smith cited incompatibility as a reason to divorce, noting they “had nothing at all in common”.[29] Smith traveled to Reno, Nevada, gained residency, and filed for divorce on December 13, 1951. Six years later in Chapel Hill, at the age of 61, she married Robert Voris Finch, a longtime friend and companion she had known since her studies at Yale University. Finch, who had issues with alcohol as well as cardiovascular problems, died on February 4, 1959.
Smith was a petite woman with dark brown hair and strikingly deep blue eyes. She enjoyed fishing, particularly at her cottage in Nags Head, North Carolina.[30] She also was an avid bingo player.[31]
Death[edit]
On January 17, 1972, Smith died of pneumonia in Shelton, Connecticut, at the age of 75.[32]
from NLS/BARD/LOC:
A tree grows in Brooklyn DB10426
Smith, Betty Reading time: 14 hours, 45 minutes.
Maria Tucci National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress.
A novel about an Irish-American girl’s childhood and youth, her struggles with poverty, and her work to get an education. The setting is Brooklyn tenement life of the early 1900’s.
Download A tree grows in Brooklyn DB10426
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “How the world really works: the science behind how we got here and where we’re going” by Vaclav Smil
Kate’s 2¢: “How the world really works: the science behind how we got here and where we’re going” by Vaclav Smil
“How the world really works: the science behind how we got here and where we’re going” by Vaclav Smil
–Main area of interest is energy studies: combine understanding of physics, history, biologogy, geology, and engineering; with attention to history, and social and economic political factors.
–Advocates for moving away from extreme views.
–Understanding energy, fuels, electricity
–Understanding food production; eating fossil fuels
–Understanding our material world; the four pillars of civilation
–Understanding globalization; engines, micro-chips, and beyond
–Understanding risks; from viruses to diets tosolar flares
–Understanding the environment; the only biosphere we have
–Understanding the future; between apocalypse and singularity
–Appendix: Understanding numbers (One might want to start with this chapter.)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
VaclavSmil.com
Vaclav Smil (Czech: [ˈvaːtslaf ˈsmɪl];[1] born December 9, 1943) is a Czech-Canadian scientist and policy analyst.[2] He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus[3] in the Faculty of Environment at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. His interdisciplinary research interests encompass energy, environmental, food, population, economic, historical and public policy studies. He has also applied these approaches to energy, food and environmental affairs of China.
Early life and education[edit]
Smil was born during World War II in Plzeň, at that time in the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (present-day Czech Republic).[4] His father was a police officer and his mother a bookkeeper.[4] Growing up in a remote mountain town in the Plzeň Region, Smil cut wood daily to keep the home heated. This provided an early lesson in energy efficiency and density.[4]
Smil completed his undergraduate studies and began his graduate work (culminating in the RNDr., an intermediate graduate degree similar to the Anglo-American Master of Philosophy credential, in 1965)[5] at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Charles University in Prague, where he took 35 classes a week, 10 months a year, for five years.[4] “They taught me nature, from geology to clouds,” Smil said.[4] After graduation he refused to join the Communist party, undermining his job prospects, though he found employment at a regional planning office.[4] He married Eva, who was studying to be a physician.[4] In 1969, following the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and Eva’s graduation, the Smils emigrated to the United States, leaving the country months before a Soviet travel ban shut the borders.[4] “That was not a minor sacrifice, you know?” Smil says.[4] Smil then received his Ph.D. in geography from the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences of Pennsylvania State University in 1971.[5][4][6]
Career[edit]
In 1972, Smil took his first job offer at the University of Manitoba where he remained for decades, until his retirement.[4] He taught introductory environmental science courses among other subjects dealing with energy, atmospheric change, China, population and economic development.[4]
Position on energy[edit]
Smil is skeptical that there will be a rapid transition to clean energy, believing it will take much longer than many predict.[4] Smil said “I have never been wrong on these major energy and environmental issues because I have nothing to sell,” unlike many energy companies and politicians.[4]
Smil noted in 2018 that coal, oil, and natural gas continue to make up 90% of the primary energy sources used in the world. Although renewable energy technologies have improved over time, the global share of energy produced from fossil fuels since 2000 has increased.[4] Smil emphasizes that replacing the use of fossil carbon in the production of primary iron, cement, ammonia, and plastics is a significant and ongoing challenge in the industrial sector. Together, these industries account for 15% of the world’s total fossil fuel consumption.[7] Smil stresses the need for energy prices to reflect their true costs, including greenhouse gas emissions, and promotes a decrease in the demand for fossil fuels through energy-saving measures.[8]
Position on economic growth[edit]
Smil believes economic growth has to end, that all growth is logistic rather than exponential, and that humans could consume much lower levels of materials and energy.[9][10][11]
Reception[edit]
Included among Smil’s admirers is Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates,[12] who has read all of Smil’s 36 books.[13] “I wait for new Smil books the way some people wait for the next Star Wars movie,” Gates wrote in 2017.[4] “He’s a slayer of bullshit,” says David Keith, an energy and climate scientist at Harvard University.[4]
Personal life[edit]
His wife Eva is a physician[4] and his son David is an organic synthetic chemist.
He lives in a house with unusually thick insulation, grows some of his own food, and eats meat roughly once a week.[10] He reads 60 to 110 non-technical books a year and keeps a list of all books he has read since 1969. He “does not intend to have a cell phone ever.”[14]
Smil is known for being “intensely private”, shunning the press while letting his books speak for themselves.[4] At the University of Manitoba, he only ever showed up at one faculty meeting (since the 1980s). The school accepted his reclusiveness so long as he kept teaching and publishing highly rated books.[4]
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
How the world really works: the science behind how we got here and where we’re going DB108428
Smil, Vaclav Reading time: 10 hours, 11 minutes.
Stephen Perring
Science and Technology
“An essential analysis of the modern science and technology that makes our twenty-first century lives possible–a scientist’s investigation into what science really does, and does not, accomplish. We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet most of us don’t know how the world really works. This book explains seven of the most fundamental realities governing our survival and prosperity. From energy and food production, through our material world and its globalization, to risks, our environment and its future, How the World Really Works offers a much-needed reality check–because before we can tackle problems effectively, we must understand the facts. In this ambitious and thought-provoking book we see, for example, that globalization isn’t inevitable–the foolishness of allowing 70 per cent of the world’s rubber gloves to be made in just one factory became glaringly obvious in 2020–and that our societies have been steadily increasing their dependence on fossil fuels, such that any promises of decarbonization by 2050 are a fairy tale. For example, each greenhouse-grown supermarket-bought tomato has the equivalent of five tablespoons of diesel embedded in its production, and we have no way of producing steel, cement or plastics at required scales without huge carbon emissions. Ultimately, Smil answers the most profound question of our age: are we irrevocably doomed or is a brighter utopia ahead? Compelling, data-rich and revisionist, this wonderfully broad, interdisciplinary guide finds faults with both extremes. Looking at the world through this quantitative lens reveals hidden truths that change the way we see our past, present and uncertain future.” — Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2022.
Download How the world really works: the science behind how we got here and where we’re going DB108428