Pioneers In The 20th Century

"Illustrated with over 500 photographs, A Century of Design is unique in providing a designer-by designer review within a historical context, revealing the connections between designers and major design movements from around the world from Art Nouveau to Postmodernism and beyond. Each chapter explains the background and orgins of the century's most important style movements, period by period. The most influential internationally known designers of the 20th century are discussed, their major works are featured and their sources of inspiration outlined. A Century of Design covers everything from telephones to textiles, cutlery to computers."--BOOK JACKET.

Doctor Hu Shih was the most remarkable Chinese intellectual of the 20th century. He was the leading pioneer of vernacular, rather than classical, Chinese. It was widely adopted by schools and the media during the 1920s. His lectures at Beijing University and elsewhere, books and articles influenced tens of thousands of Chinese. From 1938-1942, he served as China’s ambassador in Washington DC and played a key role in persuading President Franklin Roosevelt to enter World War Two on the Chinese side.

This book vividly presents the story of Margery Spring Rice, an instrumental figure in the movements of women’s health and family planning in the first half of the twentieth century. Margery Spring Rice, née Garrett, was born into a family of formidable female trailblazers – niece of physician and suffragist Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, and of Millicent Fawcett, a leading suffragist and campaigner for equal rights for women. Margery Spring Rice continued this legacy with her co-founding of the North Kensington birth control clinic in 1924, three years after Marie Stopes founded the first clinic in Britain. Engaging and accessible, this biography weaves together Spring Rice’s personal and professional lives, adopting a chronological approach which highlights how the one impacted the other. Her life unfolds against the turbulent backdrop of the early twentieth century – a period which sees the entry of women into higher education, and the upheaval and societal upshots of two world wars. Within this context, Spring Rice emerges as a dynamic figure who dedicated her life to social causes, and whose actions time and again bear out her habitual belief that, contrary to the Shakespearian dictum, ‘valour is the better part of discretion’. This is the first biography of Margery Spring Rice, drawing extensively on letters, diaries and other archival material, and equipping the text with family trees and photographs. It will be of great interest to a range of social historians, especially those researching the birth control movement; female friendships, female philanthropists, and feminist activism in the twentieth century; and the history of medicine and public health.

Tatjana Goldberg reveals the extent to which gender and socially constructed identity influenced female violinists’ ‘separate but unequal’ status in a great male-dominated virtuoso lineage by focussing on the few that stood out: the American Maud Powell (1867–1920), Australian-born Alma Moodie (1898–1943), and the British Marie Hall (1884–1956). Despite breaking down traditional gender-based patriarchal social and cultural norms, becoming celebrated soloists, and greatly contributing towards violin works and the early recording industry (Powell and Hall), they received little historical recognition. Goldberg provides a more complete picture of their artistic achievements and the impact they had on audiences.

Pioneer Life in the 20th Century is the true story of how one remarkably determined woman raised six children in a one room house built with her own hands. Each vignette captures life as it really was, be it experiencing the joys of an outhouse commandeered by a skunk or attempting to sting popcorn garland for the holiday season. Children racing on piglets or attempting to catch headless chickens will leave readers in stitches while the frantic race to save an allergic child stung by bees will leave them breathless. Whether coping with marauding bears, downed chimneys, or snow storms, this commanding story focuses on the positive without watering down the reality of their existence far from neighbours and modern amenities. Without running water or electricity and very little money, the family lived off the land and carved out uncommon solutions for survival that will keep readers in awe. Her common sense approach to schooling children beyond book learning lends a uniqueness to the children's' upbringing not found in normal halls of education. Although their struggles for survival were many, they were met with common sense, appreciation for beauty, honesty and always, always humour. Pioneers in the 20th Century covers twenty years in the life of this modern pioneer family as the children grow from infancy to adulthood. With nothing more than a can-do attitude, the family meets and overcomes challenges unheard of in modern life. In the final chapter, the now grown children share their thoughts and memories of how this life has lead them to be who they are, and what they have become. It will inspire readers to persevere against all odds and meet life's obstacles with faith and good old fashioned hard work.