Dix, Dorothy (1861-1951): Th e pseudonym of Elizabeth Gilmer, a journalist who wrote various advice columns on love and marriage and related subjects. Her ten “Dictates for a Happy Life” were oft en reprinted to help people seeking to improve their lives and themselves.
Durant, William (1861-1947): Automobile manu- facturer and tycoon. Initially a manufacturer of car- riages, he became president of the Buick Company. In 1908 he founded General Motors, which bought the Buick, Cadillac, and Oldsmobile companies, and would have bought Ford had Durant’s bankers not concluded Ford wasn’t worth a $2 million loan. Aft er losing control of GM in 1910, he founded other companies, including Durant Motors in 1921. He became a heavy player in the stock market, and used his fi nancial infl uence and friendship with President Hoover to prevent the Federal Reserve Board from taking actions he felt would inhibit the bull market. At the beginning of 1929 his fortune was conservatively estimated at $100 million, but the 1929 Crash (and his various attempts to recover from it) ruined him. Afraid of germs, he traveled in his own special hermetically-sealed railroad car and only ate food prepared by his personal chef. Ford, Henry (1863-1947):
Inventor and industrial- ist. Aft er inventing the Ford automobile in 1896, he started Ford Motor Company in 1903. He launched his Model T in 1908, using a mass-manu- facturing assembly line pro-
duction system to keep the cost so low that most Americans could aff ord one. It became the most popular car in history, with 15 million manufac- tured before it ceased production in the late Twen- ties to be replaced by the Model A. He was known for emphasizing safety in the workplace and paying high wages in his factories; when his shareholders objected to the profi t-sharing plan he instituted, he bought them out so he wouldn’t have to listen to them — not a diffi cult task for a man whose income in 1928 was $136,000 per day. An eccentric and oft en controversial fi gure, Ford held strong anti-Semitic views and was obsessed with cleanli- ness, hygiene, order, and diet.
Giannini, A.P. (1870-1949): Financier who rev- olutionized American banking. His Bank of Italy, founded in San Francisco in 1904, concentrated on small depositors and loans; it was the first to open branch offices. Through the Twenties he bought hundreds of banks, including the Bank of America. After nearly being ruined in 1928 by stock speculators (whom, in general, he loathed), he reorganized his holdings and founded the Transamerican Corporation. He was so busy that he used his influence to have his limousine offi- cially declared a fire engine (complete with siren and light) so he could race through the streets of San Francisco without having to slow down. The
1929 Crash hurt him badly, but didn’t ruin him; he fought off a challenge to his control, renamed Transamerica as Bank Of America in 1930, and went on to further financial success.
Hughes, Howard (1905-1976): Movie producer and aviator. Aft er inheriting a family fortune, he went to Hollywood to make movies, where he became a success and mingled with glamorous stars. In 1933 he founded Hughes Aircraft , and personally set aviation speed records in 1935 (352 miles per hour) and 1938 (around the world in four days). In later years he and his companies were important components of the “military-industrial complex,” but as he aged he became increasingly eccentric, dying a recluse in 1976.
Insull, Samuel (1859-1938): Utilities magnate. After immigrating from Great Britain to America in 1881, he worked for Thomas Edison, and eventually was given control of Chicago Edison, which he transformed into Commonwealth- Edison. By applying technological innovations to the electricity industry, he was able to lower the price of power. He became wealthy and powerful, and was held in awe by the financial community. However, his career was tarnished by unproven charges of quasi-legal corporate and securities manipulations that were so complex the prosecu- tors couldn’t fully describe them.
Kennedy, Joseph (1888-1969): American tycoon and patriarch of the infl uential Kennedy family. Th e son of Patrick Kennedy, a politician and liquor importer, he attended Harvard. In 1914 he married Rose Fitzgerald; they had nine children, includ- ing future President John F. Kennedy and future Senators Robert and Ted Kennedy. In 1919 he was chosen manager of Hayden, Stone and Company, and during his time there became an expert on the stock market. He built up an enormous personal fortune through stock speculation and the purchase of numerous companies, and also allegedly through bootlegging and corruption. In the summer of 1929, aft er getting stock-purchasing advice from a Wall Street shoeshine man, he largely got out of the market, telling his wife that a market anyone could play and predict was no market for Joe Kennedy. As a result, his fortune survived the 1929 Crash largely intact, and he increased it in the Th irties by taking advantage of many “bargains” brought on by the Depression. He served as Chairman of the new Securities Exchange Commission (1934-35) and as US Ambassador to Great Britain (1937-40). He opposed US intervention in Europe and supported Chamberlain’s policy of appeasing Hitler.
Livermore, Jesse (1877-1940): Famed investor. He was considered the greatest “bear” of the Twenties bull market (a bear being an investor who believes prices will fall and attempts to position himself to profi t from that, typically by selling short). He survived the 1929 Crash, and even continued to make money as an investor through 1930. But in 1931 he gambled heavily on the stock market and lost big. His attempts throughout the rest of the Th irties to regain his for- tune were fruitless, in part because new securities reg-
ulations made stock speculation a more tightly-regu- lated pursuit. In November, 1940, $365,000 in debt, he went to the bar at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel, wrote “My life has been a failure” over and over on a piece of paper, and then shot himself in the head with a pistol. Raskob, John J. (1879-1950): Industrialist and fi nancier best known for (a) his Ladies’ Home Jour- nal article “Everyone Ought To Be Rich” which recommended that people ought to invest in the stock market on margin and was published a mere two months before the October 1929 Crash, and (b) building the Empire State Building.
Winchell, Walter (1897-1972): Journalist and radio commentator. During the Th irties his column, the forerunner of modern gossip columns, was the most popular in America.
MISCELLANEOUS
Adams, Evangeline (1868?-1933): In the late Twenties, Evangeline Adams was a renowned for- tuneteller, with advice provided directly to paying clients or indirectly through her monthly news- letter. She concentrated on predicting the stock market; her clients for this fi nancial advice were said to include actress Mary Pickford, industrialist Charles Schwab, and tycoon J.P. Morgan. She pre- dicted the May, 1929 market breaks and the Octo- ber, 1929 Crash with surprising accuracy. Buck, Frank (1884-1950): Hunter and explorer. Beginning in 1911 he led expeditions to South America, Africa, and Asia to capture animals for zoos. He wrote several books about his exploits, including Bring ’Em Back Alive (1930).
Byrd, Richard (1888-1957): Explorer and aviator. A scion of the Byrds of Virginia, he graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1912 and served with the Navy in the Great War. Aft er the War he developed an interest in polar aviation. On May 9, 1926 he and Floyd Bennett made the fi rst fl ight over the North Pole; in 1929, he overfl ew the South Pole. His 1928- 29 and 1933-35 expeditions to Antarctica helped to map and open up that continent.
Collins, Floyd (?-1925): Doomed spelunker. While exploring Kentucky caves in the hope of fi nding a cave that could bypass Mammoth Cave and attract tourists to his own property, he became stuck. When reporter W. B. Miller wriggled down to interview the trapped Collins, the story became a national spectacle. Unfortunately, all rescue eff orts failed, and Collins died aft er being trapped for 18 days.
Crowley, Aleister (1875-1947): Occultist and scholar, known as “the Great Beast” and “the Wickedest Man in the World.” As a young adult he became involved with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. In time he alienated or made ene- mies of some of the Order’s most important mem- bers, including Samuel Mathers, Arthur Waite, and William Butler Yeats. He went on to create his own system of occult science and philosophy, which he described in several books. His mystic practices, drinking, drug use, sexual debauchery, and gener-
ally hedonistic lifestyle earned him notoriety and attention. In 1934 he was declared bankrupt aft er losing a lawsuit against an artist who called him a “black magician.”
Darrow, Clarence (1857-1938): Crusading attor- ney. He defended Leopold and Loeb, but is best remembered for defending teacher John Scopes in the so-called “Scopes Monkey Trial” in Tennes- see. While his client was convicted of the crime of teaching evolution, Darrow’s withering cross-exam- ination of prosecutor William Jennings Bryan (who was sworn in as an expert witness on the Bible) made creationism a laughing-stock in many circles. Frazier, Brenda (1921-1982): Café Society glam- our girl. Aft er debuting in 1938, the 17 year-old heiress (she inherited $4 million at age 21) became a national sensation because of her glamorous nightlife. In addition to providing entertainment for millions of newspaper readers, she popularized the strapless evening gown. Walter Winchell called her and other Café Society girls “celebutantes.” Lawrence, T. E. (1888-1935): British soldier, explorer, and adventurer. While attending Oxford he went to the Near East with several archaeologi- cal expeditions. He lived in the Near East from 1911-14 and learned Arabic fl uently. During the Great War the British put his knowledge of the region and its peoples to work by making him an intelligence agent; he helped lead the Arab revolt against Turkey. Aft er he failed to obtain Arab inde- pendence at the Paris Peace Conference, he became an advisor to the Colonial Offi ce. For uncertain reasons he left this job in 1922 and enlisted as a mechanic in the Royal Air Force under an assumed name, leaving and re-enlisting under a diff erent false name when discovered. His memoir Seven Pil- lars Of Wisdom (1926) brought him international attention. He was killed in a motorcycle accident near his Dorset home in 1935; at the time, some questioned whether it was really an accident or someone had murdered him for reasons unknown. Lindbergh, Charles (1902-
1974): Aviator. Aft er an early career as an airmail pilot, in 1927 he fl ew solo from New York to Paris in the Spirit Of St. Louis in 33.5 hours to win a $25,000 prize. Greeted with worldwide acclaim, he became
an international star overnight. In 1929 he married Anne Morrow and tried to settle down to a private life. In 1932 their infant son was kidnapped and murdered by Bruno Hauptmann, plunging them into a maelstrom of tragic publicity. Th ey moved to Great Britain in 1935. In 1938 he inspected the Luft waff e and commented favorably on the Nazi military forces (though some have alleged he was spying for the US). He returned to America in 1939 and began speaking in favor of isolationism, though he supported US entry into World War II following Pearl Harbor.
Markham, Beryl (1902-1986): British adventuress and aviator. She learned to fl y while growing up in
Africa, and aft er becoming a bush pilot started the scouting of wild game from the air. In September, 1936 she became the fi rst person to fl y solo across the Atlantic from Europe to North America. McPherson, Aimée Semple (1890-1944): Flam- boyant American religious fi gure. Advertising herself as “the World’s Most Pulchritudinous Evan- gelist,” she founded the International Church of the Four-Square Gospel, and in 1923 built the 5,000- seat Angelus Temple in Los Angeles. Her preaching philosophy mainly stressed benefi cent views of Heaven instead of emphasizing the fi re and brim- stone of Hell the way Billy Sunday did. In 1926 she disappeared for a month. At fi rst it seemed that she might have been swept out to sea while swimming. When she re-appeared in Mexico, she claimed to have been kidnapped. But it was later revealed that she engineered the disappearance to have an aff air with a married man.
Mitchell-Hedges, F.A. (1882-1959): Explorer, author, and radio host. Considered by some a liar on a par with Baron Munchhausen, F.A. Mitchell- Hedges hosted a weekly radio show during part of the Th irties in which he told of his adventures in Central America and the Caribbean. On his shows and in his books he claimed to have discovered various Indian tribes and lost civilizations (though his discoveries had been documented long before he reported them), and to have repeatedly escaped from savage natives, wild animals, and other threats. His best-known story is that he found a crystal skull, which he alleged was of Atlantean origin, at Lubaantun in British Honduras in 1927. (He thought the Bay Islands of Honduras were remnants of Atlantis.) But he never mentioned it until the Forties, aft er a similar skull was sold at Sotheby’s in London in 1943, leading many people to speculate that he simply obtained the Sotheby’s skull and passed it off as his own fi nd.
Post, Wiley (1899-1935): American aviator who set many fl ying records, including making the fi rst around-the-world fl ight (June 23-July 1, 1931). He died in a crash at Point Barrow, Alaska while on a fl ying tour with Will Rogers.
Rhine, J.B. (1895-1980): Parapsychology investi- gator. In 1927 Dr. Rhine went to North Carolina to study psychic phenomena under William McDou- gall of Duke University, and soon became the lead- ing authority in the fi eld. He coined the term “para- psychology,” and invented the special 25-card deck used to test ESP. In 1930 he became director of the Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke.
Stefansson, Vilhjalmur (1879-1962): Icelandic explorer. Convinced that Arctic regions were dan- gerous only to those who didn’t learn the survival techniques of the Eskimos and other native peoples (as he had), he proved it by traveling with two com- panions 500 miles across the ice-covered Beaufort Sea carrying little more than a light pack. He made other Arctic expeditions and became a popular author, lecturer, and expert on survival. Sunday, Billy (1862-1935): American prohibi- tionist and evangelist, said to have preached to more people than anyone else in history before the advent of mass communications. He was a professional baseball player before being saved and becoming a preacher — in fact, he turned down a monthly salary roughly equal to the average annual income to serve God. His energetic, fi re and brim- stone sermons, fi lled with slang and anecdotes, are considered a major factor in the rise of the anti-saloon philosophy that led to Prohibition. He remained popular, oft en preaching to audiences of thousands, until his death in 1935.