1.
Carl Van Vechten
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Carl Van Vechten was an American writer and artistic photographer who was a patron of the Harlem Renaissance and the literary executor of Gertrude Stein. Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, he was the youngest child of Charles and he graduated from Washington High School in 1898, and later the University of Chicago in 1903. In 1906, he moved to New York City and he was hired as the assistant music critic at The New York Times. His interest in opera had him take a leave of absence from the paper in 1907, while in England he married his long-time friend from Cedar Rapids, Anna Snyder. He returned to his job at the New York Times in 1909, at that time, Isadora Duncan, Anna Pavlova, and Loie Fuller were performing in New York City. The marriage to Anna Snyder ended in divorce in 1912 and he wed actress Fania Marinoff in 1914 and their marriage lasted until the end of his life, even while his relationships with men were an open secret. They continued corresponding for the remainder of Steins life, and at her death she appointed Van Vechten her literary executor, several books of Van Vechtens essays on various subjects such as music and literature were published between 1915 and 1920. Van Vechtens controversial novel Nigger Heaven was published in 1926 and his essay Negro Blues Singers was published in Vanity Fair in 1926. Biographer Edward White suggests Van Vechten was convinced that Negro culture was the essence of America, by the start of the 1930s and at age 50, Van Vechten was finished with writing and took up photography, using his apartment at 150 West 55th Street as a studio. After the 1930s Van Vechten published little writing, though he continued writing letters to many correspondents, Van Vechten died in 1964, at the age of 84, in New York City. Most of Van Vechtens personal papers are held by the Beinecke Rare Book, the Beinecke Library also holds a collection titled Living Portraits, Carl Van Vechtens Color Photographs Of African Americans, 1939–1964, a collection of 1,884 color Kodachrome slides. The Library of Congress has a collection of approximately 1,400 photographs, there is also a collection of Van Vechtens photographs in the Prentiss Taylor collection in the Smithsonians Archives of American Art, and a Van Vechten collection at Fisk University. The Museum of the City of New Yorks collection includes 2,174 of Carl Van Vechtens photographs, brandeis Universitys department of Archives & Special Collections holds 1,689 Carl Van Vechten portraits. Van Vechten also donated materials to Fisk University to form the George Gershwin Memorial Collection of Music, the album ’O, Write My Name’, American Portraits, Harlem Heroes was completed in 1983. That year, the National Endowment for the Arts transferred the Eakins Press Foundation’s prototype albums to the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, dust Tracks on a Road, An Autobiography. Guide to the Carl Van Vechten papers, 1833–1965, manuscripts and Archives, New York Public Library. Carl Van Vechten collection of papers, 1911–1964, berg Collection of English and American Literature, New York Public Library
2.
McKeesport, Pennsylvania
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McKeesport is a city in Allegheny County in the U. S. state of Pennsylvania, it is situated at the confluence of the Monongahela and Youghiogheny rivers and is part of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. The population was 19,731 at the 2010 census, by population, it is Allegheny Countys second-largest city, after Pittsburgh. Settled in 1795 and named in honor of John McKee, its founder, large deposits of bituminous coal existed. McKeesport was incorporated as a borough in 1842 and as a city in 1891 and its population grew steadily until the mid-20th century, when it peaked in the 1940s. The citys population in 1900 was 34,227, in 1910,42,694, in 1920,45,975, the decrease in the population since the 1940s is attributable to the general economic malaise that descended upon the region when the steelmaking industry moved elsewhere. The major employer was the National Tube Works, a manufacturer of iron pipes, McKeesport was the site of the first G. C. Murphy five-and-ten-cent store. John McKee, a settler of Philadelphia and son of David McKee, built a log cabin near the confluence of the Monongahela and Youghiogheny rivers. After taking over his fathers local river ferry business, he devised a plan for a city to be called McKees Port, John set out his proposal in the Pittsburgh Gazette, as part of a program under which new residents could purchase plots of land for $20.00. Around the time of the French and Indian Wars, George Washington often came to McKeesport to visit his friend, Queen Alliquippa, after being settled by the McKee family in 1795, McKeesport began to grow in 1830 when coal mining began. The first schoolhouse was built in 1832, with James E. Huey as its schoolmaster, the citys first steel mill was established in 1851. The National Tube Company opened in 1872 and became part of U. S. Steel, in the years directly following the opening of the National Tube Company, according to the U. S. Census Bureau, McKeesport was the fastest growing municipality in the nation. Families arrived from other parts of the eastern United States, Italy, Germany, Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, McKeesport rose to national importance during the 1900s as a center for manufacturing steel. The citys population reached a peak of 55,355 in 1940 National Tube closed in the 1980s, the city with the help of regional development agencies has conducted efforts to revitalize the former mill sites. McKeesport is located at 40°20′38″N 79°50′56″W, McKeesport is about 12 miles upstream from Pittsburgh, at the confluence of the Monongahela and Youghiogheny rivers. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 5.4 square miles, of which 5.0 square miles is land and 0.4 square miles. The climate in this area is characterized by hot, humid summers, according to the Köppen Climate Classification system, McKeesport has a humid continental climate, abbreviated Cfa on climate maps. The population has fallen to little more than a third of its wartime high, as of the census of 2000, there were 24,040 people,9,655 households, and 5,976 families residing in the city. The population density was 4,806.9 people per square mile, there were 11,124 housing units at an average density of 2,224.3 per square mile
3.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
4.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
5.
Journalist
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A journalist is a person who collects, writes, or distributes news or other current information. A journalists work is called journalism, a journalist can work with general issues or specialize in certain issues. However, most journalists tend to specialize, and by cooperating with other journalists, for example, a sports journalist covers news within the world of sports, but this journalist may be a part of a newspaper that covers many different topics. A reporter is a type of journalist who researches, writes, and reports on information in order to present in sources, conduct interviews, engage in research, and make reports. The information-gathering part of a job is sometimes called reporting. Reporters may split their time working in a newsroom and going out to witness events or interviewing people. Reporters may be assigned a beat or area of coverage. Depending on the context, the term journalist may include various types of editors, editorial writers, columnists, Journalism has developed a variety of ethics and standards. While objectivity and a lack of bias are of concern and importance, more liberal types of journalism, such as advocacy journalism and activism. This has become prevalent with the advent of social media and blogs, as well as other platforms that are used to manipulate or sway social and political opinions. These platforms often project extreme bias, as sources are not always held accountable or considered necessary in order to produce a written, nor did they often directly experience most social problems, or have direct access to expert insights. These limitations were made worse by a media that tended to over-simplify issues and to reinforce stereotypes, partisan viewpoints. As a consequence, Lippmann believed that the public needed journalists like himself who could serve as analysts, guiding “citizens to a deeper understanding of what was really important. ”Journalists sometimes expose themselves to danger. Organizations such as the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders publish reports on press freedom, as of November 2011, the Committee to Protect Journalists reports that 887 journalists have been killed worldwide since 1992 by murder, crossfire or combat, or on dangerous assignment. The ten deadliest countries for journalists since 1992 have been Iraq, Philippines, Russia, Colombia, Mexico, Algeria, Pakistan, India, Somalia, Brazil and Sri Lanka. The Committee to Protect Journalists also reports that as of December 1st 2010,145 journalists were jailed worldwide for journalistic activities. The ten countries with the largest number of currently-imprisoned journalists are Turkey, China, Iran, Eritrea, Burma, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Cuba, Ethiopia, apart from the physical harm, journalists are harmed psychologically. This applies especially to war reporters, but their offices at home often do not know how to deal appropriately with the reporters they expose to danger
6.
Drama
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Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning action, which is derived from I do, the two masks associated with drama represent the traditional generic division between comedy and tragedy. They are symbols of the ancient Greek Muses, Thalia, Thalia was the Muse of comedy, while Melpomene was the Muse of tragedy. Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the mode has been contrasted with the epic. The use of drama in a narrow sense to designate a specific type of play dates from the modern era. Drama in this sense refers to a play that is neither a comedy nor a tragedy—for example and it is this narrower sense that the film and television industries, along with film studies, adopted to describe drama as a genre within their respective media. Radio drama has been used in both senses—originally transmitted in a performance, it has also been used to describe the more high-brow. The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production, the structure of dramatic texts, unlike other forms of literature, is directly influenced by this collaborative production and collective reception. The early modern tragedy Hamlet by Shakespeare and the classical Athenian tragedy Oedipus Rex by Sophocles are among the masterpieces of the art of drama, a modern example is Long Days Journey into Night by Eugene O’Neill. Closet drama describes a form that is intended to be read, in improvisation, the drama does not pre-exist the moment of performance, performers devise a dramatic script spontaneously before an audience. Western drama originates in classical Greece, the theatrical culture of the city-state of Athens produced three genres of drama, tragedy, comedy, and the satyr play. Their origins remain obscure, though by the 5th century BCE they were institutionalised in competitions held as part of celebrating the god Dionysus. The competition for tragedies may have begun as early as 534 BCE, tragic dramatists were required to present a tetralogy of plays, which usually consisted of three tragedies and one satyr play. Comedy was officially recognized with a prize in the competition from 487 to 486 BCE, five comic dramatists competed at the City Dionysia, each offering a single comedy. Ancient Greek comedy is traditionally divided between old comedy, middle comedy and new comedy, following the expansion of the Roman Republic into several Greek territories between 270–240 BCE, Rome encountered Greek drama. While Greek drama continued to be performed throughout the Roman period, from the beginning of the empire, however, interest in full-length drama declined in favour of a broader variety of theatrical entertainments. The first important works of Roman literature were the tragedies and comedies that Livius Andronicus wrote from 240 BCE, five years later, Gnaeus Naevius also began to write drama. No plays from either writer have survived, by the beginning of the 2nd century BCE, drama was firmly established in Rome and a guild of writers had been formed
7.
Broadway theatre
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Along with Londons West End theatres, Broadway theatres are widely considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world. The Theater District is a popular tourist attraction in New York City, the great majority of Broadway shows are musicals. They presented Shakespeare plays and ballad operas such as The Beggars Opera, in 1752, William Hallam sent a company of twelve actors from Britain to the colonies with his brother Lewis as their manager. They established a theatre in Williamsburg, Virginia and opened with The Merchant of Venice, the company moved to New York in the summer of 1753, performing ballad operas and ballad-farces like Damon and Phillida. The Revolutionary War suspended theatre in New York, but thereafter theatre resumed in 1798, the Bowery Theatre opened in 1826, followed by others. Blackface minstrel shows, a distinctly American form of entertainment, became popular in the 1830s, by the 1840s, P. T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in lower Manhattan. In 1829, at Broadway and Prince Street, Niblos Garden opened, the 3, 000-seat theatre presented all sorts of musical and non-musical entertainments. In 1844, Palmos Opera House opened and presented opera for four seasons before bankruptcy led to its rebranding as a venue for plays under the name Burtons Theatre. The Astor Opera House opened in 1847, booth played the role for a famous 100 consecutive performances at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1865, and would later revive the role at his own Booths Theatre. Other renowned Shakespeareans who appeared in New York in this era were Henry Irving, Tommaso Salvini, Fanny Davenport, lydia Thompson came to America in 1868 heading a small theatrical troupe, adapting popular English burlesques for middle-class New York audiences. Thompsons troupe called the British Blondes, was the most popular entertainment in New York during the 1868–1869 theatrical season, the six-month tour ran for almost six extremely profitable years. Theatre in New York moved from downtown gradually to midtown beginning around 1850, in 1870, the heart of Broadway was in Union Square, and by the end of the century, many theatres were near Madison Square. Broadways first long-run musical was a 50-performance hit called The Elves in 1857, New York runs continued to lag far behind those in London, but Laura Keenes musical burletta The Seven Sisters shattered previous New York records with a run of 253 performances. It was at a performance by Keenes troupe of Our American Cousin in Washington, the production was a staggering five-and-a-half hours long, but despite its length, it ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and the Post was the first show to call itself a musical comedy, Tony Pastor opened the first vaudeville theatre one block east of Union Square in 1881, where Lillian Russell performed. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 and 1890, with book and lyrics by Harrigan and music by his father-in-law David Braham. They starred high quality singers, instead of the women of repute who had starred in earlier musical forms. Plays could run longer and still draw in the audiences, leading to better profits, as in England, during the latter half of the century, the theatre began to be cleaned up, with less prostitution hindering the attendance of the theatre by women
8.
Life (magazine)
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Life was an American magazine that ran weekly from 1883 to 1936 as a humor magazine with limited circulation. Time owner Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936, solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name, Life was published weekly until 1972, as an intermittent special until 1978, and as a monthly from 1978 to 2000. After 2000 Time Inc. continued to use the Life brand for special, Life returned to regularly scheduled issues when it became a weekly newspaper supplement from 2004 to 2007. The website life. com, originally one of the channels on Time Inc. s Pathfinder service, was for a time in the late 2000s managed as a joint venture with Getty Images under the name See Your World, LLC. On January 30,2012 the LIFE. com URL became a channel on Time. com. When Life was founded in 1883, it was developed as similar to the British magazine and it was published for 53 years as a general-interest light entertainment magazine, heavy on illustrations, jokes and social commentary. The Luce Life was the first all-photographic American news magazine, the magazines role in the history of photojournalism is considered its most important contribution to publishing. Life was wildly successful for two generations before its prestige was diminished by economics and changing tastes, Life was founded January 4,1883, in a New York City artists studio at 1155 Broadway, as a partnership between John Ames Mitchell and Andrew Miller. Mitchell held a 75 per cent interest in the magazine with the remainder by Miller, both men retained their holdings until their deaths. Miller served as secretary-treasurer of the magazine and was very successful managing the side of the operation. Mitchell, a 37-year-old illustrator who used a $10,000 inheritance to invest in the weekly magazine, Mitchell created the first Life name-plate with cupids as mascots, he later drew its masthead of a knight leveling his lance at the posterior of a fleeing devil. Mitchell took advantage of a new printing process using zinc-coated plates. This edge helped because Life faced stiff competition from the humor magazines Judge and Puck. Edward Sandford Martin was brought on as Lifes first literary editor, the motto of the first issue of Life was, While theres Life, theres hope. The new magazine set forth its principles and policies to its readers and we shall try to domesticate as much as possible of the casual cheerfulness that is drifting about in an unfriendly world. The magazine was a success and soon attracted the leading contributors. Among the most important was Charles Dana Gibson, three years after the magazine was founded, the Massachusetts native first sold Life a drawing for $4, a dog outside his kennel howling at the moon. Encouraged by a publisher who was also an artist, Gibson was joined in Life early days by such illustrators as Palmer Cox
9.
Magazine
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A magazine is a publication, usually a periodical publication, which is printed or electronically published. Magazines are generally published on a schedule and contain a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, by a price, by prepaid subscriptions. At its root, the magazine refers to a collection or storage location. In the case of written publication, it is a collection of written articles and this explains why magazine publications share the word root with gunpowder magazines, artillery magazines, firearms magazines, and, in French, retail stores such as department stores. By definition, a magazine paginates with each issue starting at three, with the standard sizing being 8 3/8 ×10 7/8 inches. However, in the sense a journal has continuous pagination throughout a volume. Some professional or trade publications are also peer-reviewed, an example being the Journal of Accountancy, academic or professional publications that are not peer-reviewed are generally professional magazines. That a publication calls itself a journal does not make it a journal in the technical sense, magazines can be distributed through the mail, through sales by newsstands, bookstores, or other vendors, or through free distribution at selected pick-up locations. The subscription business models for distribution fall into three main categories. In this model, the magazine is sold to readers for a price, either on a basis or by subscription. Paid circulation allows for defined readership statistics and this means that there is no cover price and issues are given away, for example in street dispensers, airline, or included with other products or publications. Because this model involves giving issues away to unspecific populations, the statistics only entail the number of issues distributed and this is the model used by many trade magazines distributed only to qualifying readers, often for free and determined by some form of survey. This allows a level of certainty that advertisements will be received by the advertisers target audience. This latter model was used before the rise of the World Wide Web and is still employed by some titles. For example, in the United Kingdom, a number of computer-industry magazines use this model, including Computer Weekly and Computing, for the global media industry, an example would be VideoAge International. The earliest example of magazines was Erbauliche Monaths Unterredungen, a literary and philosophy magazine, the Gentlemans Magazine, first published in 1731, in London was the first general-interest magazine. Edward Cave, who edited The Gentlemans Magazine under the pen name Sylvanus Urban, was the first to use the term magazine, founded by Herbert Ingram in 1842, The Illustrated London News was the first illustrated magazine
10.
James Stewart
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James Maitland Stewart, also known as Jimmy Stewart, was an American actor and military officer who is among the most honored and popular stars in film history. A major Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player, Stewart was known for his distinctive drawl and down-to-earth persona, many of the films he starred in have become enduring classics. Stewart was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one in competition for The Philadelphia Story, in 1999, Stewart was named the third greatest male screen legend of the Golden Age of Hollywood by the American Film Institute, behind Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant. The American Film Institute has also named five of Stewarts films to its list of the 100 best American films ever made. Stewart was born on May 20,1908, in Indiana, Pennsylvania, the son of Elizabeth Ruth Jackson and Alexander Maitland Stewart, Stewart was mainly of Scottish ancestry and was raised as a Presbyterian. He was descended from veterans of the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the eldest of three children, he was expected to continue his fathers business, which had been in the family for three generations. His mother was an excellent pianist but his father discouraged Stewarts request for lessons, when his father accepted a gift of an accordion from a guest, young Stewart quickly learned to play the instrument, which became a fixture offstage during his acting career. As the family grew, music continued to be an important part of family life, Stewart attended Mercersburg Academy prep school, graduating in 1928. He was active in a variety of activities and he played on the football and track teams, was art editor of the KARUX yearbook, and a member of the choir club, glee club, and John Marshall Literary Society. Over the following two summers, he took a job as an assistant with a professional magician and he made his first appearance onstage at Mercersburg, as Buquet in the play The Wolves. A shy child, Stewart spent much of his time in the basement working on model airplanes, mechanical drawing. However, he abandoned visions of being a pilot when his father insisted that instead of the United States Naval Academy he attend Princeton University, Stewart enrolled at Princeton in 1928 as a member of the class of 1932. His acting and accordion talents at Princeton led him to be invited to the University Players, the company had been organized in 1928 and would run until 1932, with Joshua Logan, Bretaigne Windust and Charles Leatherbee as directors. Stewart performed in bit parts in the Players productions in Cape Cod during the summer of 1932, the troupe had previously included Henry Fonda and Margaret Sullavan. Stewart and Fonda became close friends over the summer of 1932 when they shared an apartment with Joshua Logan, the New Yorker commented, Mr. James Stewarts chauffeur. Comes on for three minutes and walks off to a round of spontaneous applause, the play was a moderate success, but times were hard. Many Broadway theaters had been converted to houses and the Depression was reaching bottom. From 1932 through 1934, Stewart later recalled, Id only worked three months, every play I got into folded
