Gilbert Seldes facts for kids
Gilbert Vivian Seldes (born January 3, 1893 – died September 29, 1970) was an American writer and critic. He was very interested in American popular culture. Seldes worked as an editor for The Dial magazine. He also hosted a TV show called The Subject is Jazz on NBC.
He wrote for many magazines and newspapers. These included Vanity Fair and the Saturday Evening Post. Gilbert Seldes also wrote plays for Broadway, like Lysistrata. Later, he worked in film and radio. He became the first director of television for CBS News. He also helped start the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Seldes spent his life studying popular culture. He believed everyone should be able to enjoy and understand art. He also thought people should criticize the media. He once said, "I've been carrying on a lover's quarrel with the popular arts for years... It's been fun. Nothing like them."
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Gilbert Seldes' Early Life
Gilbert Seldes was born on January 3, 1893. His hometown was Alliance, New Jersey. He grew up in a small farming community. His parents were immigrants from Russia. His mother, Anna Saphro, died when he was young. Gilbert and his older brother, George Seldes, were raised by their father.
His father, George Sergius Seldes, was a strong thinker. He encouraged his sons to read books they would always learn from. He also let them think freely about religion. This helped Gilbert develop an open mind.
Seldes went to Central High School in Philadelphia. Then he studied English at Harvard. He graduated in 1914. During this time, he met friends like E.E. Cummings. After college, he worked as a war journalist from 1916 to 1917.
Gilbert Seldes' Family Life
Gilbert Seldes married Alice Wadhams Hall in Paris in 1924. Their daughter was the actress Marian Seldes. Their son is Timothy Seldes, a literary agent. Gilbert was the younger brother of the famous journalist George Seldes.
Gilbert Seldes' Ideas on Culture
Understanding Mass Culture
From the 1930s, Seldes worried about how popular culture was changing. Radio and television made it into "mass culture." He felt that people were watching more and participating less. He also worried that American tastes were becoming too similar. By the 1950s, he saw that media was controlled by a few big companies. He thought this made art less creative and lower quality. In his book The Seven Lively Arts (1957), he wrote, "we are being engulfed in a mass-produced mediocrity."
Seldes believed media companies had a big responsibility. He thought their focus on money hurt popular culture. He blamed them for showing content that appealed to the lowest common interests. He called soap operas and TV dramas "corrupting influences." Seldes felt TV narrowed people's interests. He believed the public should see the best art, not just the easiest.
He also thought that TV made entertainment seem like a right. He believed it should be something earned. Still, Seldes was hopeful. He wanted the public to criticize the media. He dreamed of a time when everyone could be a cultural critic. Historian Michael Kammen saw Seldes as a pioneer in cultural studies. Seldes studied how culture affects society, politics, and education.
In 1946, Seldes wrote an essay for Esquire magazine. He criticized the radio comedy of the time. He thought many comedians just used insults, which he found boring. This led to an invitation to appear on The Jack Benny Program. He defended his ideas on the show in February 1946. Even though he criticized radio comedy, he enjoyed being on the show. He said Benny's writers made him "seem very funny indeed."
Gilbert Seldes' Political Views
Seldes loved America, but he usually stayed out of politics. He later regretted not getting more involved. He felt his comfortable life made him less interested in public issues.
Before and during World War II, Seldes strongly supported American ideas. He believed American culture and democracy were unique. He was against Communism. He thought Communism was not right for America. He felt it demanded too much from people and took away democratic rights. Seldes saw Americans in the 1930s as not wanting to rebel. So, he focused on the concerns of middle-class Americans. These ideas were in his books like Mainland (1936). Later, he thought some of his views from this time were too strict.
Gilbert Seldes' Career Journey
Editor, Writer, and Critic
After graduating from Harvard in 1914, Seldes went to London. He worked as a reporter for the Philadelphia Evening Ledger. He wrote about life in England during World War I. He also wrote for other newspapers and magazines.
After the war, Seldes returned to America. He became an editor for Collier Weekly. In 1920, he became an editor for The Dial magazine. He often wrote his own articles for The Dial using pen names. In 1922, he wrote a very positive review of Ulysses by James Joyce. This helped the book become known in the U.S. Seldes also helped The Dial publish T. S. Eliot's famous poem The Waste Land. He worked with other smart people like Marianne Moore. They said he was a great colleague.
In 1923, Vanity Fair named Seldes one of the top "modern critics of America." He then became a regular writer for their magazine. He traveled to Europe to turn his articles on popular culture into a book. He told his brother he wanted to rest and write. In late 1923, Seldes left The Dial to write full-time. His most famous book, The Seven Lively Arts, came from his time in Paris.
He came back to New York and wrote for many journals. His weekly column for the Saturday Evening Post paid him well. In the late 1920s and 1930s, he also wrote and produced plays. Some plays, like A Midsummer Night's Dream (1936), did not do well. His adaptation of the Greek play Lysistrata (1932) was a success on Broadway.
Television and Education
Seldes' interests grew as film, radio, and TV became popular. From 1927, he was a film critic. He studied why working-class people loved movies. In 1937, he joined CBS. He was their first director of television programs. In 1952, he directed the National Association for Better Radio and TV. He wrote, produced, and directed educational shows for TV and radio. These shows covered American history and culture. Examples include Americans at Work for radio. He also made This is America (1933), a seventy-minute documentary film. He hosted NBC's The Subject is Jazz (1958). This weekly show taught Americans about different types of jazz music. From the 1950s, he also taught literature and communications at Columbia University.
Seldes was the first dean of the Annenberg School of Communications. This school is at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He worked there from 1959 to 1963. He also advised National Educational Television. In 1963, he was chosen for the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Throughout his career, Seldes tried to balance writing for money and writing important works. After the Great Depression, he had money problems. He had to write for commercial projects. One example is This Is New York (1934), a tourist guide.
The Seven Lively Arts
The Seven Lively Arts is Gilbert Seldes' most important book. He explained that the title didn't mean there were exactly seven arts. He said, "Lively was for the most part unchallenged." His goal was to give popular culture the same serious attention that critics gave to "highbrow" art. In 1922, he listed some of these often-ignored arts. They included "Slapstick Moving Pictures, Comic Strips, Revues, Musical Comedy, Columns, Slang Humor, Popular Songs, Vaudeville".
After finishing the book in 1923, Seldes wrote about its main idea. He said that "minor arts" (often called "lowbrow") are not against "major arts." He believed the biggest enemy for both was "second rate bogus arts." He defined "bogus" art as something that pretends to be important but is actually snobby. This included "vocal concerts, pseudo-classic dancing, the serious intellectual drama, the civic masque, the high-toned moving picture, and grand opera."
Seldes also tried to explain why African-American music and shows were so popular. He wanted to change how people defined art. While he praised these shows, he also mistakenly thought they would not last long.
Gilbert Seldes' Relationships with Others
Seldes preferred to work alone. He did not join famous groups like H. L. Mencken's "smart set."
He had a difficult relationship with Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway disliked Seldes, even though Seldes often praised Hemingway's writing.
Seldes was a big fan of Krazy Kat cartoonist George Herriman. They were good friends. Herriman even drew Christmas cards for Seldes' family in 1922.
Edward Murrow and Seldes also had a tense work relationship. They disagreed about Murrow's TV show, See It Now. Seldes believed in fair reporting. He criticized Murrow's plan to challenge Senator Joseph McCarthy on the show. Seldes also often criticized F. Scott Fitzgerald's work. However, he praised Fitzgerald's most famous novel, The Great Gatsby. Despite their disagreements, Seldes and Fitzgerald remained good friends.
Gilbert Seldes' Later Years and Legacy
In his later years, Seldes had health problems. He had a poor memory and felt sad. This stopped him from finishing his memoirs. His Skye terrier dog, Bobby, and his daughter, Marian, kept him company. He became interested in how science affected society and communication. Gilbert Seldes died on September 29, 1970, at age 77. He passed away from heart failure.
Seldes left a huge impact. He was a writer, critic, editor, producer, director, and teacher. His influence went beyond just magazines or TV shows. Leo Mishkin, a critic, described Seldes' importance. He said Seldes was a teacher for many people in the 1920s. Mishkin said that when The Seven Lively Arts was published, people knew "a new age, a new appreciation of the arts... had opened up for us all." He believed Seldes' ideas would last as long as Americans enjoyed mass entertainment. He called Gilbert Seldes "a monument to his influence."
Gilbert Seldes' Works
Books
- The United States and the War (1917)
- The Seven Lively Arts (1924)
- The Stammering Century (1928)
- An Hour with the Movies and the Talkies (1929)
- The Movies and the Talkies (1929)
- The Wings of the Eagle (1929)
- Back from Utopia (1929)
- The Years of the Locust (1933)
- Mainland (1936)
- Movies for the Millions (1937)
- The Movies Come from America (1937)
- Your Money and Your Life (1938)
- Proclaim Liberty! (1942)
- The Great Audience (1950)
- Writing for Television (1952)
- The Public Arts (1956)
- The Seven Lively Arts, 2nd ed. (1957)
- The New Mass Media (1957)
- As in My Time (1958) (unfinished memoirs)
Plays and Musicals
- The Wisecrackers (1925)
- Love of Three Oranges (1925)
- Lysistrata (A Modern Version) (1932)
- A Midsummer Night's Dream (1936)
- Swinging the Dream (1939)
Radio and Television Shows
- This is America (1933)
- Americans at Work (1937)
- The Taming of the Shrew (1937)
- Puritan in Babylon (1937)
- Living History (1938)
- Americans All – Immigrants All (1938)
- The Lively Arts (1950s)
- The Subject is Jazz (1958)
