Every day brings a new story. And each day contributes to story telling -- in prose and in poetry, in art and in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books.
Today is the story of September 12th
___________________________________________________________________________
It is the 255th day of the year, leaving 110 days remaining in 2022.
An elitist and a curmudgeon, Mencken wrote his stories and his newspaper columns with satire and wit. He savaged those he disagreed with and had a strong disdain for politicians and religion. He was a student of the English language -- American English, to be precise -- and wrote several books, including The American Language, on the vernacular.
He spent almost his entire career with the Baltimore Sun, serving as a reporter and columnist. He also wrote for other newspapers and publications in the area, including one he helped found, The American Mercury.
He may be best known for his coverage of the 1925 Scopes Trail, in which a teacher in Dayton, Tenn., was tried (and convicted) for violating a state law prohibiting the teaching of evolution. The trial was a cultural touchstone in the United States, with three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan agreeing to prosecute the case, and noted defense attorney Clarence Darrow defending John Scopes.
Mencken was at his scornful best, dubbing the case "The Monkey Trial."
Then a syndicated columnist from a large American city, Mencken was at the top of his influence in the 1920s. He despised religion, businessmen, and the provincialism of the middle class. He fancied himself a cultural critic, excoriating writers he thought pretentious, in favor of those he liked, such as Theodore Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis.
He lost some of that influence as times changed -- and he did not -- in the late 1930s and into the 1940s. He kept up his growing if unpopular criticism of FDR, the New Deal, and U.S. involvement in World War II.
Mencken died in 1956
No comments:
Post a Comment