The Papers Of Will Rogers The Final Years August 1928 August 1935

This fifth and final volume of The Papers of Will Rogers traces the career of Oklahoma’s beloved entertainer during his most popular years and extends beyond his death in 1935. By 1928, the Oklahoma humorist and commentator had reached national prominence through his newspaper columns, silent films, sound recordings, books, philanthropic endeavors, and lecture tours. His fame, fortune, and influence, however, had yet to crest. This volume showcases a wide variety of documents, including correspondence with some of the most significant figures of the day, revealing Rogers’s rise to fame as the nation’s leading social and political commentator and as a hugely popular star of radio, stage, and film. Rogers’s multifaceted career ended abruptly when he and the famous aviator Wylie Post died in an airplane crash in northernmost Alaska. This documentary history of his final years includes transcripts of radio broadcasts, contracts, and business documents, as well as nearly two hundred telegrams and letters to family, friends, and notable public figures—the majority of which have never before been published. It also covers the aftermath of his fatal airplane accident: the certificate of death, a first-person account of his funeral, settlement of his estate, efforts to pay tribute to his memory, and unauthorized attempts to capitalize on his fame.

This biography of a little-remembered Southern humorist “delivers on its claim that Cobb’s life is emblematic of changes that registered on a larger scale” (Journal of Southern History). “Humor is merely tragedy standing on its head with its pants torn.” ?Irvin S. Cobb Born and raised in Paducah, Kentucky, humorist Irvin S. Cobb (1876–1944) rose from humble beginnings to become one of the early twentieth century’s most celebrated writers. As a staff reporter for the New York World and Saturday Evening Post, he became one of the highest-paid journalists in the United States. He also wrote short stories for noted magazines, published books, and penned scripts for the stage and screen. In Irvin S. Cobb: The Rise and Fall of a Southern Humorist, historian William E. Ellis examines the life of this significant writer. Though a consummate wordsmith and a talented observer of the comical in everyday life, Cobb was a product of the Reconstruction era and the Jim Crow South. As a party to the endemic racism of his time, he often bemoaned the North’s harsh treatment of the South and stereotyped African Americans in his writings. Marred by racist undertones, Cobb’s work has largely slipped into obscurity. Nevertheless, Ellis argues that Cobb’s life and works are worthy of more detailed study, citing his wide-ranging contributions to media culture and his coverage of some of the biggest stories of his day, including on-the-ground reporting during World War I. A valuable resource for students of journalism, American humor, and popular culture, this illuminating biography explores Cobb’s life and his influence on early twentieth-century letters.

In 1944 and 1945, Tom Faulkner was a B-24 pilot flying out of San Giovanni airfield in Italy as a member of the 15th Air Force of the U.S. Army Air Forces. Only 19 years old when he completed his 28th and last mission, Tom was one of the youngest bomber pilots to serve in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II. Between September 1944 and the end of February 1945, he flew against targets in Hungary, Germany, Italy, Austria, and Yugoslavia. On Tom’s last mission against the marshalling yards at Augsburg, Germany, his plane was severely damaged, and he had to fly to Switzerland where he and his crew were interned. The 15th Air Force generally has been overshadowed by works on the 8th Air Force based in England. Faulkner’s memoir helps fill an important void by providing a first-hand account of a pilot and his crew during the waning months of the war, as well as a description of his experiences before his military service. David L. Snead has edited the memoir and provided annotations and corroboration for the various missions.

This revealing book presents a selection of lost articles from “Our Osage Hills,” a newspaper column by the renowned Osage writer, naturalist, and historian, John Joseph Mathews. Signed only with the initials “J.J.M.,” Mathews’s column featured regularly in the Pawhuska Daily Journal-Capital during the early 1930s. While Mathews is best known for his novel Sundown (1934), the pieces gathered in this volume reveal him to be a compelling essayist. Marked by wit and erudition, Mathews’s column not only evokes the unique beauty of the Osage prairie, but also takes on urgent political issues, such as ecological conservation and Osage sovereignty. In Our Osage Hills, Michael Snyder interweaves Mathews’s writings with original essays that illuminate their relevant historical and cultural contexts. The result isan Osage-centric chronicle of the Great Depression, a time of environmental and economic crisis for the Osage Nation and country as a whole. Drawing on new historical and biographical research, Snyder’s commentaries highlight the larger stakes of Mathews’s reflections on nature and culture and situate them within a fascinating story about Osage, Native American, and American life in the early twentieth century. In treating topics that range from sports, art, film, and literature to the realities and legacies of violence against the Osages, Snyder conveys the broad spectrum of Osage familial, social, and cultural history.

Reconsidering the Russian Revolution a century later Reflecting on the fate of the Russian Revolution one hundred years after the October Uprising, Ronald Grigor Suny—one of the world’s leading historians of the period—explores how scholars and political scientists have tried to understand this historic upheaval, the civil war that followed, and the extraordinary intrusion of ordinary people onto the world stage. Suny provides an assessment of the choices made in the revolutionary years by Soviet leaders—the achievements, costs, and losses that continue to weigh on us today. A quarter century after the disintegration of the USSR, the revolution is usually told as a story of failure. However, Suny reevaluates its radical democratic ambitions, its missed opportunities, victories, and the colossal agonies of trying to build a kind of “socialism” in the inhospitable, isolated environment of peasant Russia. He ponders what lessons 1917 provides for Marxists and anyone looking for alternatives to capitalism and bourgeois democracy.

Introduction: the critical work and critical pleasure of American literature -- Inner-self industries: soft capitalism's reproductive logic -- How America works: getting personal to get personnel -- Dress-down conquest: Americanizing top-down as bottom-up -- Afterword: payoffs

"Between the Covers, A Revue of Books Related to Will Rogers" is a bibliography of more than one thousand Rogers-related books including a summary and/or description of each book. This compilation covers works by Rogers, anthologies of articles about him, books concerning other individuals but which mention him, reference works, and even books on cooking and art. Users of this comprehensive work can turn to sections focused on the several identifications of the man: Native American, radio commentator, film actor, writer, aviation enthusiast, public speaker, stage performer, humorist, and philosopher.