Skip to main content

American Dreamer

By

Oliver Stone spends a lot of time of Henry Wallace in the first half of the second episode of The Untold History of the United States, capping off Wallace's lost 1944 nomination for Vice President with Jimmy Stewart's famous "Lost Causes" speech from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.  There is some resemblance.  One can only speculate what it might have been like if Wallace had won the nomination over Truman in 1944, and as Stone noted became president upon FDR's death.   I'm not sure what his source information was, but here is a book from 2000 entitled American Dreamer: The Life and Times of Henry A. Wallace.  Unfortunately, the book is no longer in print and is quite pricey.

Comments

  1. James FergusonDecember 15, 2012 at 12:59 PM

    Maybe Stone's passion for Wallace will result in the reprinting of past biographies like this one,

    http://www.amazon.com/The-Rise-Fall-Peoples-Century/dp/0029200903/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1355569091&sr=8-10&keywords=henry+a.+wallace

    or inspire someone to write a new book on Wallace.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rick DiguetteDecember 16, 2012 at 3:54 PM

      Wallace sounds like a true mixed-bag: progressivist views and bad political instincts. He neither was nor is alone in this.

      Delete
    2. avrdsDecember 16, 2012 at 4:04 PM

      Alas, that could describe most progressives.

      Delete
  2. Rick DiguetteDecember 16, 2012 at 3:53 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. avrdsDecember 16, 2012 at 4:04 PM

    It's pricey, but looks like it's still in print:

    http://www.amazon.com/American-Dreamer-Life-Henry-Wallace/dp/0393322289

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

By
  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, not...
228 comments
Read more

Dylan in America

By
Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan.  Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose.  Looks like only yesterday.  Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.
182 comments
Read more

Team of Rivals Reading Group

By
''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005
293 comments
Read more