 I know I promised to lay some pipe for you, miss, but are you sure you want to put plumbing in this old place?  American author Herbert Creekmore was born in Mississippi in 1907 and spared no effort trying to get out once he reached adulthood. He disliked the south for a couple of reasons. Most importantly, he was gay, which was not at all accepted there at the time. Second, he was a gifted poet, also not readily accepted in the blue collar south. But while he was able to more or less keep his sexuality a secret, he wasn’t as easily able to disguise his literary pretensions. He eventually left Mississippi to attend college, published his first collection of poems in 1940, and later served in the Navy. When he returned to the Mississippi, work was scarce, but he was able to earn money via the Federal Writer’s Project, a program established by Franklin Roosevelt to offer financial support to writers. Yes, half a century ago the U.S. federal government considered literature important enough that it subsidized fledgling writers. Anyway, Cotton Country was Creekmore’s first and possibly best novel, appearing in 1946. As you can probably discern from the suggestive pulp cover, it concerns a rebellious girl’s attempts to escape the influence of her fanatically religious father. Creekmore had a successful literary career, but was always unpopular in the south because of his focus on religious, sexual and racial intolerance. However his work is highly regarded, and remains widely available. He died in New York City in 1966.
U.S.A., Mississippi, New Deal, Federal Writer’s Project, Cotton Country, The Fingers of the Night, Hubert Creekmore, Franklin D. Roosevelt, gay, cover art, literature
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1901—McKinley Fatally Shot
Polish-born anarchist Leon Czolgosz shoots and fatally wounds U.S. President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinley dies September 12, and Czolgosz is later executed. 1939—U.S. Declares Neutrality in WW II
The Neutrality Acts, which had been passed in the 1930s when the United States considered foreign conflicts undesirable, prompts the nation to declare neutrality in World War II. The policy ended with the Lend-Lease Act of March 1941, which allowed the U.S. to sell, lend or give war materials to allied nations. 1972—Munich Massacre
During the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, a paramilitary group calling itself Black September takes members of the Israeli olympic team hostage. Eventually the group, which represents the first glimpse of terrorists for most people in the Western world, kill eleven of the hostages along with one West German police officer during a rescue attempt by West German police that devolves into a firefight. Five of the eight members of Black September are also killed. 1957—U.S. National Guard Used Against Students
The governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, mobilizes the National Guard to prevent nine African-American students known as the Little Rock Nine from enrolling in high school in Little Rock, Arkansas. |
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