Light a Fire

SUMMARY: Kurt Vonnegut (November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) American novelist
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Kurt Vonnegut Books

Kurt Vonnegut’s roller-coaster life has lead to some of the best American novels of the 20th Century. Kurt Vonnegut was known mostly for his unusual writing style, with his humanist point of view. Kurt began his life on November 11, 1922. Kurt always had a niche for writing and began writing for the nation’s first high school newspaper, The Daily Echo. He later enrolled in Cornell University and worked on their newspaper, The Cornell Daily Sun. As a student at Cornell, he enlisted in the U.S. Army. He was sent by the army to what is now called, Carnegie Mellon University in which he studied engineering.

Time in War
Many of Kurt’s writings come from his own life experiences. Kurt Vonnegut returned home on leave from the army and on Mother’s Day 1945, his mother committed suicide overdosing on pain pills. Kurt’s life experiences taught him to write fictional tragedies with a comedic disparity. While serving in the army, Kurt became a prisoner of war after being captured in the Battle of the Buldge. He witnessed the fire-bombing of Dresden in 1945, which completely demolished the city. Vonnegut survived by taking shelter in an underground meat locker.

As a prisoner of war, Kurt also had to serve the Natzi’s in collecting bodies for burial. Since there were so many bodies to dispose of, the Natzi’s sent in soldiers to use flamethrowers and burn the bodies. These brutal experiences lead Kurt to write one of his greatest accomplishments, Slaughterhouse Five. Upon being released by the Natzi’s, the United States awarded him the Purple Heart. He never felt he deserved the medal as he said it was for a simple wound of “frost-bite”.

Upon returning from the army, he worked several jobs before his writing career took off. After working as a writer and reporter, he began working for GE as a publicist. In 1950, he quit work for GE and moved to Cape Cod to focus on writing. Kurt attended the University of Chicago and studied anthropology, according to Vonnegut, his thesis was rejected by the university.

In 1971, the University of Chicago awarded him his M.A. degree for Cat’s Cradle. Upon his writings, Kurt learned he also enjoyed painting and pencil sketching. Some of his most famous drawings include “One Eyed Jack”, which is a derivation from his self portrait. In 1971, one of his most famous novels was published, Breakfast of Champions. Kurt also did many illustrations for Breakfast of Champions.

Some of Kurt Vonnegut’s accomplishments include: The Eden Express, Time and Timbuktu, Lonesome No More, Jailbird, Sun Moon Star, Palm Sunday, Deadeye Dick, Bluebeard, Hocus Pocus, and Timequake.

Personal Life
Kurt Vonnegut’s personal life was also filled with comedic disparities. Kurt struggled with depression for four years and at one point attempted to take his life. Even with all his struggles, Kurt still evolved as a literary icon and had a devoted following. Kurt married his high school girlfriend, Jane Marie Cox. They had three children and divorced in 1979. Kurt’s sister died of cancer and he adopted her three children. The death of his sister, Alice inspired him to write, Slapstick, No More. This book recounts the death of Alice’s husband who died two days before she did.

In 1979 he married his second wife, Jill Krementz and they adopted Vonnegut’s seventh child. Kurt was also a heavy smoker and he dubbed it, “a classy way to commit suicide.” Kurt died on April 11, 2007, from irreversible brain damage suffered from a fall at his home. Kurt often said that short stories were like a “catnap for the brain”. He lived his life writing telling his readers to fire up your brain and then relax it for 10 minutes while being whisked away in a story. Kurt Vonnegut will forever be known as one of 20th century’s great American pacifists.

Filed Under: Biography

SUMMARY: Joseph Campbell (March 26, 1904 – October 30, 1987) American mythology professor, writer, and orator
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Joseph Campbell Books

Joseph John Campbell was best known as an American mythology professor, writer, and orator. He became renowned for his work in the fields of comparative mythology and religion.

On March 26, 1904, Joseph John Campbell was born in White Plains, NY. Joe, as he came to be known, was the first child of a Roman Catholic couple, Charles and Josephine Campbell. Joe’s earliest years appear to be largely unremarkable; but then, when he was seven years old, his father took him and his younger brother, Charlie, to see Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. This evening would be a high-point in Joe’s life; for, although the cowboys were clearly the show’s stars, as Joe would later write, he “became fascinated, seized, obsessed, by the figure of a naked American Indian with his ear to the ground, a bow and arrow in his hand, and a look of special knowledge in his eyes.”

Joseph Campbell became consumed with Native American culture; and his world view was arguably shaped by the dynamic tension between the faith of his forebears and his newfound appreciation and knowledge of the Native American culture. Joe had read every book on American Indians in the children’s section of his local library by the age of 10 and was admitted to the adult stacks, where he eventually read the entire multi-volume Reports of the Bureau of American Ethnology. He immersed himself in every aspect of the culture he had grown to love and began frequenting the American Museum of Natural History, where he became fascinated with totem poles and masks, thus beginning a lifelong exploration of that museum’s vast collection.

Joe’s mother enrolled him at Canterbury, a Catholic residential school in New Milford CT. His high school years were rich and rewarding, even though they marked by a major tragedy: in 1919, the Campbell home was consumed by a fire that killed his grandmother and destroyed all of the family’s possessions. Joe graduated from Canterbury in 1921, and the following September, entered Dartmouth College. He was soon disillusioned with the social scene and disappointed by a lack of academic rigor, so he transferred to Columbia University, where he excelled. He specialized in medieval literature, played in a jazz band, and became a star runner. After earning a B.A. from Columbia (1925), and receiving an M.A. (1927) for his work in Arthurian Studies, Joe was awarded a Proudfit Traveling Fellowship to continue his studies at the University of Paris (1927-28). After he then received and rejected an offer to teach at his high school alma mater his Fellowship was renewed, and he traveled to Germany to resume his studies at the University of Munich (1928-29). While in Germany he became familiar with the modernists who whose art and insights would greatly influence his own work.

After Joe returned from Europe he was at a crossroads as to what he should do. Few teaching positions were open during the Great Depression. He spent the next two years reconnecting with his family and making journal entries. Then, late in 1931, after rejecting the possibility of a doctoral program or teaching job at Columbia, he decided, like countless young men before and since, to “hit the road,” to undertake a cross-country journey to perhaps discover the purpose of his life. It was during this odyssey that his writing career began in earnest. He continued to write to some seventy colleges in attempt to secure employment and was finally offered a position at Canterbury School. After an unhappy year there in 1933, he moved to a cottage without running water on Maverick Road in Woodstock NY, where he spent a year reading and writing. In 1934, he was offered and did accept a position in the literature department at Sarah Lawrence College, a post he would retain for thirty-eight years. He would retire from Sarah Lawrence in 1972 to devote himself full-time to his writing.

In 1938 he married Jean Erdman, one of his students who would become a major presence in the emerging field of modern dance, first, as a star dancer in Martha Graham’s fledgling troupe, and later, as dancer/choreographer of her own company.

But his many writings notwithstanding, it was arguably as a public speaker that Joe had his greatest popular impact. From his first public lecture in 1940 it was apparent that he was an erudite but accessible lecturer, a gifted storyteller. In 1956, he was invited to speak at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute where working without notes, he delivered two straight days of lectures. His talks were so universally well-received, he was invited back annually for the next seventeen years. He would remain a highly popular and sought after speaker for many years.

Joseph Campbell died at the age of 83 on October 30, 1987, at his home in Honolulu, Hawaii, from complications due to esophageal cancer with his wife Jean at his side.

Filed Under: Biography

SUMMARY: Jonathan Swift (November 30, 1667 – October 19, 1745) Irish cleric, Dean of St. Patrick’s, Dublin, satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for Whigs then for Tories), and poet
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Jonathan Swift Books

Jonathan Swift was an Irish author and journalist and considered to be the foremost prose satirist in English language. His literary work gained him immense fame and he was known as Dublin’s foremost citizen. Most consider Swift’s most famous work to be Gulliver’s Travels (1726), where the stories of Gulliver’s experiences among dwarfs and giants are best known. Swift was able to give to these journeys an air of authenticity and realism and many contemporary readers even believed them to be true.

Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin to a family facing difficult circumstances. His father, Jonathan Swift Sr., who was a lawyer and an English civil servant, had died seven month’s before his son was born. Abigail Erick, Swift’s mother, was left without any income to support her family. Historical accounts tell of the infant Jonathan being taken or “stolen” to England by his nurse, and at the age of four he was sent back to Ireland. Still not reunited with his mother Abigail returned to England, and left her son to her wealthy brother-in-law, Uncle Godwin.

Swift did receive an extensive education for a child of his day he studied at Kilkenny Grammar School (1674-82), Trinity College in Dublin (1682-89), receiving his B.A. in 1686 and M.A. in 1692. Despite being afforded ample opportunities in education at school Swift was not a very good student and his teachers noted his headstrong behavior. When the anti-Catholic Revolution began in 1688 and aroused violent reaction in Ireland, Swift made the decision to move to England into the household of Sir William Temple at Moor Park, Surrey. Lady Temple was a relative of Swift’s mother. He worked there as a secretary for many years but did not like his position as a servant in the household.

In 1695 Swift was also ordained in the Church of Ireland. During his time in Moor Park, Swift also was the teacher of a young girl, Esther Johnson, whom he called Stella. After Stella had grown she moved to Ireland to live near him and followed him on his travels to London. Their nature of their relationship was never fully known and was a constant source of gossips. According to some speculations, they were married in 1716. Stella died suddenly in 1728 and Swift kept a lock of her hair among his papers for the rest of his life.

Swift returned to Ireland in 1699. He made several trips to London and gained fame with his essays. Throughout the reign of Queen Anne (1702-14), Swift was one of the central characters in the literary and political life of London. During the ensuing years while Swift tried his hand at politics and diplomacy two constants remained his life-his writings and his love affairs. The women of his interest were to feature prominently in his writings for the rest of his life.

From 1713 to 1742 Swift was also the dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It is thought that Swift suffered from Ménière’s disease or as we know today- Alzheimer’s disease. Many people considered him insane partially due to the fact that from the beginning of his twentieth year he had suffered from deafness. Swift had predicted his own mental decay when he was about 50 and had remarked to the poet Edward Young when they were gazing at the withered crown of a tree: “I shall be like that tree; I shall die from the top.”

In 1742 records indicate that he appears to have suffered a stroke, losing the ability to speak and realizing his worst fears of becoming mentally disabled. In order to protect him from unscrupulous hangers on, who had begun to prey on the great man, his closest companions had him declared of “unsound mind and memory. Jonathan Swift died in Dublin on October 19, 1745 After being laid out in public view for the people of Dublin to pay their last respects, he was buried by Esther Johnson’s side, in accordance with his wishes. The bulk of his fortune was left to establish a hospital for the mentally ill, originally known as St. Patrick’s Hospital for Imbeciles, which opened in 1757, and which still exists as a psychiatric hospital.

Filed Under: Biography

SUMMARY: John Dewey (October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer
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John Dewey Books

John Dewey was an American philosopher and educator whose writings and teachings have continued to have a profound influence on education in the United States. Dewey’s philosophy of education is called instrumentalism which focused on learning-by-doing rather than rote learning and dogmatic instruction, which was the current practice of his day. He has also been called the father of functional psychology and he was a leading representative of the progressive movement in U.S. schooling during the first half of the 20th century. Dewey was also a very prolific writer. The following bibliography references can be used to study his most popular works on education.
• My Pedagogic Creed (1897)
• The School and Society (1900)
• Child and the Curriculum (1902)
• Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education (1916)
• How We Think: A Restatement of the Relation of Reflective Thinking to the Educative Process (1933)
• Experience and Education (1938)
John Dewey was born in Burlington, Vermont on October 20, 1859 to a family of modest origins. He followed his older brother, Davis Rich Dewey and attended the University of Vermont, from which he graduated (Phi Beta Kappa) in 1879. After graduation he then worked for three years as a high school teacher in Oil City, Pennsylvania. Interestingly enough despite his future influence on education Dewey decided that he was unsuited for employment in primary or secondary education. After borrowing two thousand dollars from his aunt, he was able to enter graduate school to pursue a degree in philosophy. After receiving his Ph.D. from the School of Arts & Sciences at Johns Hopkins University in 1884, he took a faculty position at the University of Michigan. In 1894 Dewey joined the faculty of the newly founded University of Chicago where he shaped his belief in an empirically based theory of knowledge aligning his ideals with the newly emerging Pragmatic school of thought. It was during his time at the University of Chicago that his writing career began in earnest. Yet almost constant and major disagreements with the administration ultimately led to his resignation from the University at which point he left for the East Coast. From 1904 until his death he achieved the distinction of being a professor of philosophy at Columbia University and Teachers College, Columbia University. He was also a long-time member of the American Federation of Teachers. John Dewey died in New York City on June 1, 1952.

While John Dewey immersed himself into the aesthetics of thought, the works of journalism and even the study of art his main focus and lasting impression is in the field of education. Dewey felt it was vitally important that education should not be the teaching of mere dead fact, but that the skills and knowledge which students learned be integrated fully into their lives as persons, citizens and human beings. This practical element of learning by doing was given birth from his subscription to the philosophical school of Pragmatism. Dewey is often cited as creating the foundations for outcomes-based education and Standards-based education reform, and helping create standards such as the NCTM mathematics standards, all of which emphasize critical thinking over memorization of facts. While Dewey’s ideas were never broadly and deeply integrated into the practices of American public schools, some of his values and terms were widespread.

Many of Dewey’s ideas went on to directly impact the founding of Bennington College in Vermont, where Dewey served on the Board of Trustees. One of the Bennington houses bears Dewey’s name. Dewey also profoundly affected Ken and Susan Webb in founding Farm and Wilderness Camps in Plymouth, Vermont. In addition there are several schools today that are based on what is known as the Deweyean model. As a memorial to John Dewey “The Center for Dewey Studies” is the focal point for the study of Dewey’s life and work, and is located at the campus of Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Major works of John Dewey include:
• “The New Psychology.”
• “The Ego as Cause” Philosophical Review, 3,337-341. (1894)
• “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology” (1896)
• My Pedagogic Creed (1897)
• The Child and the Curriculum (1902)
• “The Postulate of Immediate Empiricism” (1905)
• “Democracy and Education” (1916)
• How We Think (1910)
• Reconstruction in Philosophy (1919)
• Human Nature and Conduct: An Introduction to Social Psychology
• Experience and Nature (1925)
• The Public and its Problems (1927)
• The Quest for Certainty (1929)
• Individualism Old and New (1930)
• Philosophy and Civilization (1931)
• Ethics, second edition (with James Hayden Tufts) (1932)
• Art as Experience (1934)
• A Common Faith (1934)
• Liberalism and Social Action (1935)
• Experience and Education (1938)
• Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (1938)
• Freedom and Culture (1939)
• Knowing and the Known (1949) (with Arthur Bentley)

Filed Under: Biography

SUMMARY: John Barrymore (February 15, 1882 – May 29, 1942 ) American actor
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John Barrymore Books

John Drew Barrymore was born as John Blyth Barrymore, Jr. on June 4, 1932 in Los Angeles, California. He was born into the elite Barrymore family of actors which included his father, John Barrymore, and his father’s siblings, Lionel and Ethel. His mother was Dolores Costello who also had show business ties. His parents divorced when John was around 3 years old sometime in 1935. He claimed (probably fallaciously) to have met his father only once. John and his cousin, Dirk Drew Davenport, went looking for adventure and enlisted in the United States Navy during World War II. Owing to their mature physical appearance, the military did not discover until several weeks later that the boys were under age. John then ran away at age 17 and signed a film contract, but he repeatedly abandoned leading roles and the major film career he wanted never materialized.

Due to the postwar ebullience of the times the movie industry was looking for new faces that could bring Hollywood to a new standard of glamour. John Barrymore came upon the scene at just the right time. Many felt that he was the actor who could recapture and redefine the glamour, skill, and galvanizing presence of an earlier day. Sadly his life was to become a study of unrecognized potential.

He changed his name to John Drew Barrymore in 1958 and had a brief resurgence in film, appearing in several leading roles. However, his personal life and social behavior obstructed any professional progress. During the 1960s, he was occasionally jailed for drug activity, public drunkenness, and spousal abuse.

Sadly his personal problems continued to impede his career when in the late 1960s; John accepted a major guest role as Lazarus in the Star Trek episode “The Alternative Factor”. He failed to show up (and was ultimately replaced at the last minute by actor Robert Brown); this resulted in SAG suspending Barrymore for six months.

John Barrymore married four times with each marriage producing one child. His marriages all ended in divorce. A list of his marriages includes:

• Cara Williams: married 1952, divorced 1959; son John Blyth Barrymore
• Gabriella Palazzoli: married October 11, 1960, divorced ; daughter Blyth Dolores Barrymore
• Ildiko Jaid Mako: married 6 March 1974, divorced; 9 February 1981; daughter Drew Barrymore
• Nina Wayne: marriage date unknown, divorced; daughter Brahma (Jessica) Blyth Barrymore

Although he did continue to appear occasionally on screen, he became more and more reclusive. John Drew became a derelict apparently suffering from many of the same physical and mental problems that had destroyed his father. He became estranged from his family, including his children, his lifestyle continued to worsen while his physical and mental health suffered. In 2003, his daughter Drew moved him near her home despite their estrangement, paying his medical bills until his death from cancer. He was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to television. He died November 29, 2004 at the age of 72 years old.

His list of works includes:

The Sundowners (1950)
High Lonesome (1950)
Quebec (1951)
The Big Night (1951)
Thunderbirds (1952)
While the City Sleeps (1956)
The Shadow on the Window (1957)
High School Confidential (1958)
Never Love a Stranger (1958)
Night of the Quarter Moon (1959)
Ti aspetterò all’inferno (1960)
The Night They Killed Rasputin (1960)
The Cossacks (1960)
The Pharaoh’s Woman (1960)
The Trojan Horse (1961)
Pontius Pilate (1962)
The Centurion (1962)
Invasion 1700 (1963)
Weapons of War (1963)
The Keeler Affair (1963)
Death on the Four Poster (1964)
War of the Zombies (1964)
Crimine a due (1965)
Gunsmoke TV episode – One Killer on Ice (aired 1/23/1965)
The Clones (1973)
Baby Blue Marine (1976)

Filed Under: Biography

SUMMARY: Janis Joplin (19 January 1943 – 4 October 1970) American singer, songwriter
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Janis Joplin Books

Janis Lyn Joplin was born to Seth and Dorothy Joplin on January 19, 1943. Her father was an engineer at Texaco and her mother worked at a local business college. She was the oldest child with two younger siblings, Michael and Laura. Growing up in Port Arthur, Texas she began singing in the local choir and listening to musicians such as Leadbelly, Bessie Smith, Odetta and Big Mama Thornton. She was not a popular student at Thomas Jefferson High School and later stated in interviews that she felt shunned. She focused on painting and later began singing blues and folk music with her friends.

Joplin graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in 1960 and went on to attend the University of Texas at Austin. She did not complete her studies while there. She lived in a building that was commonly referred to as “The Ghetto,” located at 2812 1/2 Nueces Street. Her rise to prominence came in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company, and later branched into a solo career.

She left Texas for San Francisco in 1963, where she first lived in North Beach and later Haight-Ashbury. It was around this time her drug use began to increase, and she acquired a reputation as a “speed freak” and occasional heroin user. She was known as a heavy drinker throughout her career, and her trademark beverage was Southern Comfort.

In April 1965, several months after Joplin recorded her first songs her friends, noticing the physical effects of her amphetamine habit (she weighed 88 pounds),convinced her to return to her parents in Port Arthur, Texas. While living at home, she changed her entire lifestyle. She attempted a complete lifestyle makeover by avoiding drugs and alcohol, wearing relatively modest dresses, adopting a beehive hairdo, and enrolling as sociology major at Lamar University in nearby Beaumont, Texas. Despite all of this change she still corresponded by mail with a methamphetamine dealer she had known in San Francisco and even considered his proposal of marriage. In a strange incident the man visited the Joplin household wearing a conservative suit and tie, charming the entire family and asking Mr. Joplin for permission to marry his daughter, and then without reason broke off contact with her. She did not give up performing altogether during her year at Lamar University, she commuted to Austin to perform solo, accompanying herself on guitar.

After breaking away and beginning her solo career Joplin and her new band toured North America and Europe throughout 1969, appearing at Woodstock in August. The Kozmic Blues album, released in September of 1969, was certified gold. At the end of the year, the group broke up. Their final gig with Joplin was at Madison Square Garden in New York City on December 21, 1969.

She reformed her group with a new band and for a brief period (after vacationing in Brazil) seemed to be drug-free again. But the demons that had plagued her(depression, perfectionism, lack of self-esteem) coupled with the influences of the day once again had her returning to her drug and drinking habits with ever more vengeance.

Among her last public appearances were two broadcasts of The Dick Cavett Show on which she appeared on June 25 and August 3, 1970. While on the June 25 show, she announced that she would attend her ten-year high school class reunion, although she admitted that when in high school, her schoolmates “laughed me out of class, out of town and out of the state”. She did attend the reunion on August 14, accompanied by fellow musician and friend Bob Neuwirth and road manager John Cooke, but it would be one of the last decisions of her life and it reportedly proved to be a rather unhappy experience for her.

When she failed to show up for a scheduled recording session on October 4 producer Paul Rothchild became concerned. Her band’s road manager, John Cooke, drove to the Landmark Motor Hotel (since renamed the Highland Gardens Hotel) where Joplin had been a guest since August 24. Upon arriving he saw Joplin’s psychedelically painted Porsche still in the parking lot. After entering her room, he found her dead on the floor. The official cause of death was listed as an overdose of heroin, possibly combined with the effects of alcohol. She was only 27 years old.

Joplin was cremated at the Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Mortuary in Los Angeles. Her ashes were scattered from a plane into the Pacific Ocean and along Stinson Beach. The only funeral service was held at Pierce Brothers and was attended by only Joplin’s parents and maternal aunt.

Joplin is remembered for her powerful and distinctive voice with it’s rasping, overtone-rich sound which diverged significantly from the soft folk and jazz-influenced styles that were common among many artists at the time. She personified that period of the Sixties when the San Francisco sound, along with the outlandish dress and lifestyles, that jolted the rest of the country via magazines and television.

Ironically the girl that felt ignored during her life by her hometown was remembered much later. Her life and achievements were showcased and recognized in 1988 in Port Arthur, Texas by the dedication of the Janis Joplin Memorial, with an original bronze, multi-image sculpture of Joplin done by Douglas Clark.

Joplin was also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, and received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.

Filed Under: Biography

SUMMARY: James Thurber (December 8, 1894–November 2, 1961) American humorist and cartoonist.
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James Thurber Books

James Grover Thurber was born on December 8, 1894 in Columbus, Ohio. His father, Charles L. Thurber, was a clerk and minor politician, who went through many periods of unemployment. Mary Thurber, his mother, was a strong-minded woman and a practical joker. He became known as both a humorist and cartoonist throughout the United States. Thurber was best known for his contributions (both cartoons and short stories) that often appeared in The New Yorker magazine.

When his brother William shot an arrow at him Thurber was partially blinded by the childhood accident. Since he was unable to participate in games and sports with other children, he developed a rich fantasy life, which found its outlet in his writings. Thurber began writing during his years at secondary school. Due to his poor eyesight, he was exempt from serving in World War I, but instead studied between 1913 and 1918 at Ohio State University. He also worked as a code clerk in Washington, D.C. and at the United States embassy in Paris. In the early 1920s he began his career as a journalist while working for several newspapers. He also wrote for the Chicago Tribune while living in Paris.

Thurber married Althea Adams in 1922. The marriage was unhappy most of the time and ended in divorce in 1935. After moving to New York City in 1926 Thurber joined Harold Ross’s newly established The New Yorker, where he found his clear, concise precise style.

Thurber worked hard throughout the 1920s, both in the United States and in France, to establish himself as a professional writer. He became unique among major American literary figures, for his simple, surrealistic drawings and cartoons. Both his writing and drawing skills were helped along by the support of, and collaboration with, fellow New Yorker staff member E. B. White. It was White who insisted that Thurber’s sketches could stand on their own as artistic expressions which prompted Thurber to go on to draw six covers and numerous classic illustrations for the New Yorker.

Until the 1930’s he was able to sketch out his cartoons in the usual fashion but then his failing eyesight later required him to draw them on very large sheets of paper using a thick black crayon (also, on black paper using white chalk, from which they were photographed and the colors reversed for publication). Regardless of whatever method, he used his cartoons became as notable as his writings; they possessed an eerie, wobbly feel that seems to mirror Thurber’s idiosyncratic view on life. The last drawing Thurber was able to complete was a self-portrait done in yellow crayon on black paper, which appeared on the cover of the July 9, 1951, edition of Time Magazine.

Thurber eventually married again and had one daughter. In his later years he lived with his wife Helen Wismer, who was a magazine editor, from West Cornwall, Connecticut. He suffered greatly from alcoholism and depression, but Helen’s devoted nursing enabled him to maintain his literary production. Thurber died of a blood clot on the brain on November 2, 1961, in New York at the age of 67.
A list of his works includes:

• Is Sex Necessary? Or, Why You Feel the Way You Do, 1929
• The Owl in the Attic and Other Perplexities, 1931
• The Seal in the Bedroom and Other Predicaments, 1932
• My Life and Hard Times, 1933
• The Middle-Aged Man on the Flying Trapeze, 1935
• Let Your Mind Alone! and Other More Or Less Inspirational Pieces, 1937
• The Last Flower, 1939
• The Male Animal (stage play), 1939 (with Elliot Nugent)
• Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated, 1940
• My World–and Welcome To It, 1942
• Many Moons, (children) 1943
• Men, Women, and Dogs, 1943
• The Great Quillow, (children) 1944
• The Thurber Carnival (anthology), 1945,
• The White Deer, (children) 1945
• The Beast in Me and Other Animals, 1948
• The 13 Clocks, (children) 1950
• The Thurber Album, 1952
• Thurber Country, 1953
• Thurber’s Dogs, 1955
• Further Fables For Our Time, 1956
• The Wonderful O, (children) 1957
• Alarms and Diversions (anthology), 1957
• The Years With Ross, 1959
• A Thurber Carnival (stage play), 1960
• Lanterns and Lances, 1961

Filed Under: Biography

SUMMARY: Jack Welch (November 19, 1935) Chairman and CEO of General Electric
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Jack Welch Books

Jack Welch came to fame in the business world through his management success and skills during his many years at General Electric. Welch was able to turn the struggling slow moving giant of a company into a dynamic growth company that became revered by many. Welch increased the value of the company from $13 billion to several hundred billion during his 20 years of leadership at General Electric (GE).

Jack Welch was born on November 19, 1935 in Peabody, Massachusetts to John, a Boston & Maine Railroad conductor, and Grace, a housewife. Jack Welch attended Salem High School and later the University of Massachusetts Amherst where he graduated in 1957 with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering. After graduation Welch went on to receive his M.S. and Ph.D at the University of Illinois in 1960.

In 1960 Jack Welch joined General Electric. He first worked as a junior engineer in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, with a salary of $10,500 annually. Welch became unhappy and was displeased with the $1,000 raise he was offered after his first year, as well as the strict bureaucracy within GE. He began planning to leave the company to work with International Minerals & Chemicals in Skokie, Illinois. But a young executive just two levels above Welch convinced him to stay and give GE a chance. Welch reluctantly agreed but quickly worked his way up through the ranks where he became GE’s youngest chairman and CEO in 1981, after succeeding Reginald H. Jones. Welch set to work and by 1982, he had disassembled much of the earlier management team put together by Jones.

During his 20 year reign of General Electric, Jack Welch’s management skills became almost legendary. He had a no nonsense leadership style that gave him a reputation of being hard, even ruthless, but he was also fair when making business decisions. Welch had little time and patience for bureaucracy and archaic business ways. If his managers did not change they were replaced with someone that could change. Managers were given free reign to do as they liked as long as they followed the GE ethic of constant change and striving to do better. He strove to run GE like a small dynamic business that was able to change as opportunities arose or when a business becomes unprofitable.

In his pursuit to change and streamline the General Electric giant Welch earned his share of criticism when he was given the nickname of Neutron Jack. During his reign more than 100,000 GE employees had their jobs taken from them. It was his ideal that GE businesses had to be the best performing business in their field or they were sold.

General Electric saw enormous growth and expansion under Jack Welch’s leadership. Through streamlining operations, acquiring new businesses, and ensuring that each business under the GE umbrella was one of the best in its field the company experienced dramatic expansion from 1981 to 2001. While his management tactics tend to elicit a love/hate relationship there is no denying that Jack Welsh had a major impact on both GE and the entire manufacturing industry even to this day. Since retiring from his role as the GE Chairman in 2001 Welch went to write his best selling memoir “Jack, Straight from the Gut” and consults with several Fortune 500 businesses.

He had four children with his first wife, Carolyn. They divorced amicably in April 1987 after 28 years of marriage. His second wife, former mergers-and-acquisitions lawyer was Jane Beasley. She married Jack Welsh in April 1989, and they divorced in 2003. The divorce was highly publicized sine Welch had crafted a prenuptial agreement, but Beasley insisted on a ten-year time limit to its applicability, and thus she was able to leave the marriage with an amount believed to be in the range of $180 million. The third wife of Jack Welch is Suzy Wetlaufer, a former editor of Harvard Business Review. Wetlaufer served briefly as the editor-in-chief of the Harvard Business Review before being forced to resign in early 2002. Her resignation came after admitting to having been involved in an affair with Welch while preparing an interview with him for the magazine.

Welch underwent sucessful triple bypass surgery in May 1995. After his recovery he has spent his time consulting, indulging his interest in modern art, international travel, teaching and attending Red Sox games. Welch is a strong believer in management education. In September 2006, Jack Welch began teaching a class at the MIT Sloan School of Management to a hand-picked group of 30 students with a demonstrated career interest in leadership. Welch’s net worth is estimated today at $720 million dollars.

Filed Under: Biography

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