Fun Facts: Maxfield Parrish's "Daybreak"

This young woman, in Parrish's "Morning"
(http://www.greatmodernpictures.com/mfp08lg.jpg)




was also the model for the reclining girl in 1922's "Daybreak"
(http://americanart.si.edu/eyelevel/images/parrish.jpg)



Her name was Kitty Owen.
And her grandfather was William Jennings Bryan.


Her mother - Bryan's daughter Ruth Bryan Owen - was a prominent feminist, and was later elected to Congress in 1928, and has a fascinating biography herself. Ruth Bryan Owen was the mother of four (two with the first husband, two with Maj. Owen), but if "Kitty" Owen is also known as "Helen Rudd Brown" (noted as "daughter of Ruth Bryan Owen"), then she ran for Congress herself, in 1958 and 1960 (and lost).

According to
http://politicalgraveyard.com/families/1185.html
Helen Rudd Brown - either the girl in "Daybreak", or, more likely, her half-sister - was still living in 2003.

(This family gets more interesting the deeper one looks:
http://www.nndb.com/people/098/000052939/
http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/Cambridge/entries/061/Ruth-Bryan-Owen-Rohde.html
http://www.uic.edu/orgs/cwluherstory/jofreeman/polhistory/owen.htm

WJ Bryan's wife was a lawyer herself.
Not only was RB Owen the first woman Representative from the deep South, but FDR appointed her as America's first woman Ambassador. Ruth Bryan apparently dropped out of college in 1903 to marry and raise a family; was divorced in 1909, and only married Major Reginald Owen (a Brit, no less) in 1910 - so either the girl in the picture was about 11 years old, or she took her stepfather's name.)

Here's a photo of Eleanor Roosevelt and RB Owen:

http://history1900s.about.com/library/photos/blyfdr143.htm

Anyway, let's take a moment to reflect upon Parrish's masterpiece, "Daybreak":

This was considered to be fine art in 1922, and it was the most popular art print of the 20th century (the figure "one for every four American homes" is commonly cited) - but let's note that over eighty-five years later, in today's climate of panic, it counts as kiddie-pr0n: the naked girl is Parrish's daughter Jean, who was all of eleven years old. Parrish couldn't have sold this to the American public in the 21st century; he'd be lucky to talk his way out of jail just for having painted it.

Times change.

"Radio, live transmission..."

I have so much seniority that I'm now required to take off a day per month (...use/lose time). My eldest kid is done with school for the year; so, this being her First Day of Summer, we went for a Road Trip in the Miata, which ended up being an expedition up to the "new" digital TV transmitters.

(About two years ago the local broadcasters pooled their resources and put up One BIG Tower for their new digital tv signals.)

It's about a mile past the old tower farm (aka "Televisonland"), and then a further half-mile up a gravel road marked "TOWER #3 / PRIVATE ROAD".

There were two cars there; I got out to read the signage ("You are under video observation", for one) when an old engineer came out to see what we wanted. I gave him the Secret Lodge Sign, and he offered us the fifty-cent tour.

It's about the biggest transmitter shack you ever saw. They have TWO 1.2 megawatt diesel generators, and he claimed about a weeks' worth of fuel.

Each station has its own locked room, maybe 25 x 30'; so the whole complex must be 60' x 100'? Big. The tower is taller than the old analog towers, too. We did some handshaking, I dropped my father's credentials: it turns out that the guy (who never DID give me his name... odd, that) had done a summer at WPTR in '57, so he could name the Chief Engineer; which of course means that he was two steps from my father. Small world.

We stopped at the Tollgate for the traditional post-Pinnacle repast. I got to tell the young one the traditional tales of Guys I Know Who've Worked at Transmitter Shacks, the stories of Our People.



Now I have Ian Curtis in my head:


Radio, live transmission.
Radio, live transmission.

Listen to the silence, let it ring on.
Eyes, dark grey lenses frightened of the sun.
We would have a fine time living in the night,
Left to blind destruction,
Waiting for our sight.

And we would go on as though nothing was wrong.
And hide from these days we remained all alone.
Staying in the same place, just staying out the time.
Touching from a distance,
Further all the time.

(chorus: Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio. &c.)

Well I could call out when the going gets tough.
The things that we've learnt are no longer enough.
No language, just sound, that's all we need know, to synchronise
love to the beat of the show.

And we could dance.

(chorus:) Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio. (repeat.)


ADDENDUM: one of my radio pals found pictures of this:

http://www.necrat.com/albdtv.html


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