Jim Nolan's Blog

To Get a Foot in the Library Door, Immigrant Kids Cleaned Their Hands in Puddles

Photo: Lewis Hine, "Tenement House with Children in Front," 1910

An interview with scholar Barbara Sicherman about why her father and other children on the Lower East Side of New York loved the library.

Wash Hands Before Reading (2:31)

Ida B. Wells: How Reading Helped Create a Crusader. An Interview with Barbara Sicherman.

Photo: University of Chicago Special Collections

Ida B. Wells: How Reading Created a Crusader (6:21)

Book Clubs in the Gilded Age and Age of Oprah: An Interview with Barbara Sicherman

Cartoon by: Isabella Bannerman

Buffalo ex-pat and scholar Barbara Sicherman reveals that books clubs were perhaps even more popular among women in the Gilded Age.

Reading in the Gilded Age and Age of Oprah (5:05)

"Little Woman," Big Impact: An Interview with Barbara Sicherman

Illustration by Isabella Bannerman for Forged in Buffalo. 

The first of four interviews this week with scholar Barbara Sicherman discussing her book, Well Read Lives: How Books Inspired a Generation of American Women. Little Women influenced readers in the Gilded Age, and ever since—including Patti Smith and J.K. Rowling. Audio by Ken Meyer. 

Little Women, Big Impact (3:23) 

"Well Read Lives" Now In Paperback

Screenshot from the UNC Press Blog

A great post by my friend Barbara Sicherman on the UNC Press blog. It's about her father Jake's love of reading and how it influenced her. Jake was a 1912 grad of Buffalo Central High School and a lifelong pal of my grandfather, Paul. Barbara recounts how, as a child living on the Lower East Side of New York, Jake used to wash his hands in puddles before entering the library so he'd be allowed to take out books. Barbara's terrific book about how literature influenced the lives of a generation of American women is now available in paperback. I think it would be a much-discussed book group selection and deserves wide attention.

Dickens Day, Buffalo Central High, 1912

Click any page to enlarge.

To me, this presentation on the 100th anniversary of Dickens' birth seems incredibly ambitious. Sketches from David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, Pickwick Papers, A Christmas Carol, with a dance or two thrown in. Dickens, who was also a famous actor, would have loved it. My grandfather, Paul Nolan was the stage manager. My friend Barbara Sicherman's dad, Jacob, played Ebenezer Scrooge. A hundred years later, Dickens is still beyond category.

Pyramid Scheme, 1939

Dad, Barbara Sicherman, and my Uncle Ned Nolan in the backyard. Dad is sporting some fashionable glasses. I love the deckled edges on the photo.

Niagara Falls, Sept. 1939

From left, my Uncle John, unknown, my father, Barbara Sicherman, Esther Sicherman, my Uncle Ned. This looks like it's shot from the Canadian side facing the American Falls. John looks dapper as usual. He was my beautiful Aunt Mamie's favorite. Photo by, I'm guessing, Jake Sicherman. (In September 1939, Germany and the Soviet Red Army invaded Poland.) Click to enlarge.

Advice for the Class of 2011 from the Class of 1912

The Buffalo Central High Class of 1912. My grandfather, Paul, is in the top row, sixth from right (or left). His great-grandson, Eddie, graduates from high school today. The story can be found in the Kindle eBook version of Smokey the Talking Dog, here.

Click to hear Jim's To The Class of 2010 from the Class of 1912 

Barbara Sicherman's, and Oprah Winfrey's, Well-Read Lives

In my audio essay, To the Class of 2010, from the Class of 1912, I mention my grandfather's great friend and classmate Jake Sicherman, and that the women of Jake's class gave his daughter Barbara something to write about. Barbara is William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of American Institutions and Values, Emerita, at Trinity College, and one of the country's premier historians of women's history and medical history. (She's also a lifelong friend of my dad and our family.) Barbara's latest book is a work of great scholarship and still a page turner, describing how in the Gilded Age "adolescent reading was truly transformative in constructing female identity, stirring imaginations, and fostering ambition." I think Oprah and Oprah Book Club members would love this book. Sicherman writes: 'Where (Jane) Addams grew up in privilege, Winfrey came from a background of poverty, neglect and abuse and found in books "an open door to dwell in possibility." She echoes the stories of Jewish immigrants a century earlier when she observes, "Getting my library card was like citizenship, it was like American citizenship."' You will find the book at Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Barbara-Sicherman/e/B001H6SA4Y, or click here.  

Click here to hear Jim's audio essay, To the Class of 2010, from the Class of 1912