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101-710: Rice was born Elmer Leopold Reizenstein at 127 East 90th Street in New York City. His grandfather was a political activist in the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states. After the failure of that political upheaval, he emigrated to the United States where he became a businessman. He spent most of his retirement years living with the Rice family and developed a close relationship with his grandson Elmer, who became

202-440: A constitution , universal manhood suffrage , press freedom , freedom of expression and other democratic rights, the establishment of civilian militia, liberation of peasants, liberalization of the economy, abolition of tariff barriers and the abolition of monarchical power structures in favour of the establishment of republican states , or at least the restriction of the prince power in the form of constitutional monarchies. In

303-639: A Chinese Wonderland City . After the end of the war, Atkinson stayed only briefly in New York before he was sent to the Soviet Union to serve as a press correspondent in Moscow . His work there for the Times earned him a Pulitzer Prize for Correspondence in 1947. Upon his return to the United States, Atkinson was reassigned to the newspaper's drama desk, where he remained until his retirement in 1960. He

404-609: A Gertrude-like character. In his retirement, Rice was the author of a controversial book on American drama, The Living Theatre (1960), and of a richly detailed autobiography, Minority Report (1964). Rice was one of the more politically outspoken dramatists of his time and took an active part in the American Civil Liberties Union , the Authors' League, the Dramatists Guild of America where he

505-512: A bicameral parliament called the Rigsdag . It is said that the Danish king's first words after signing away his absolute power were, "that was nice, now I can sleep in the mornings". Although army officers were dissatisfied, they accepted the new arrangement which, in contrast to the rest of Europe, was not overturned by reactionaries. The liberal constitution did not extend to Schleswig , leaving

606-461: A desire for reform, and agreed on many of the specific aims. Their participation in the revolutions, however, differed. While much of the impetus came from the middle classes, the physical backbone of the movement came from the lower classes. The revolts first erupted in the cities. The population in French rural areas had risen rapidly , causing many peasants to seek a living in the cities. Many in

707-416: A living and, while deriding the commercialism of the New York stage, he managed to earn a considerable amount of money, but at a cost to his more experimental vision. The realistic drama he could write with ease was at odds with the innovations that most intrigued him. The Adding Machine and Street Scene were anomalies and did not make money. An even more radical venture, The Sidewalks of New York of 1925,

808-570: A long and respected theater career. Brooks Atkinson described Rice in his history of Broadway as "a plain, rather sober man with a reticent, unyielding personality...But when a social principle was at stake, he was more clear-headed than most people, and he was quietly invincible...He was one of Broadway's most eminent citizens." Elmer Rice's papers were placed at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin in 1968,

909-443: A mere cog in the corporate machine, discovers that he is to be replaced at work by an adding machine , he snaps and murders his boss. After his trial and execution, he enters the next life only to confront some of the same issues and, judged to be of minimal use in heaven, is sent back to Earth for recycling. Theatre critic Brooks Atkinson called it "the most original and brilliant play any American had written up to that time ...

1010-515: A national bank, a Hungarian army, the withdrawal of foreign (Austrian) troops from Hungary, the freeing of political prisoners, and union with Transylvania . On that morning, the demands were read aloud along with poetry by Sándor Petőfi with the simple lines of "We swear by the God of the Hungarians. We swear, we shall be slaves no more". Lajos Kossuth and some other liberal nobility that made up

1111-403: A number of menial jobs before earning his diploma by preparing for the state examinations on his own and then applying to law school. Though he disliked legal studies and spent a good deal of class time reading plays in class (because they could be finished within the span of a two-hour lecture, he said), Rice graduated from New York Law School in 1912 and began a short-lived legal career. Leaving

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1212-414: A politically motivated writer and shared his grandfather's liberal and pacifist politics. A staunch atheist, his grandfather may also have influenced Elmer in his feelings about religion as he refused to attend Hebrew school or to have a bar mitzvah. In contrast, Rice's relationship with his father was very distant. As he wrote in his autobiography, his grandfather and his Uncle Will, both of whom boarded with

1313-556: A vigorous work that drew a realistic picture of the legal profession for which Rice had been trained. (The latter play is probably more frequently revived in regional theatres than any of Rice's other plays.) In that decade, he also wrote two novels and enjoyed a lucrative period in Hollywood, writing screenplays. His time in Hollywood was not without its friction, though, as he was looked upon by many studio heads as one of "those Eastern Reds." The Depression-inspired, anti-capitalist We,

1414-409: A working-class family with no interest in the arts and known primarily for his attachment to theater and politics, Rice was passionate about Old Master and modern art. His art collection, slowly assembled over the years, included works by Picasso, Braque, Rouault, Leger, Derain, Klee, and Modigliani. He regularly frequented New York's museums, and in his autobiography, wrote of his first trip to Spain and

1515-440: A year after his death. Additions have been made by family members over the years. The collection spans over 100 boxes and includes contracts, correspondence, manuscript drafts, notebooks, photographs, royalty statements, scripts, theater programs, and over seventy-three scrapbooks. The Ransom Center's library division has over 900 books from Rice's personal library, many of which are personally inscribed to or annotated by Rice. Rice

1616-465: Is given much credit for the growth of Off-Broadway into a major theatrical force in the 1950s, and has been cited by many influential people in the theatre as crucial to their careers. David Merrick 's famous spoof ad for Subways Are For Sleeping —in which he hired seven ordinary New Yorkers who had the same names as prominent drama critics to praise his musical—had to wait for Atkinson's retirement, because Merrick could not find anyone with

1717-539: The Regulamentul Organic regime, and, through many of its leaders, demanded the abolition of boyar privilege. Led by a group of young intellectuals and officers in the Wallachian military forces , the movement succeeded in toppling the ruling Prince Gheorghe Bibescu , whom it replaced with a provisional government and a regency , and in passing a series of major liberal reforms, first announced in

1818-498: The Communist Party candidate in the presidential election because he found Hoover and Roosevelt equally displeasing alternatives with an insufficient grasp of the crisis the country faced. though in subsequent elections he became an FDR supporter) He also spoke out against McCarthyism in the 1950s. In the end, Elmer Rice did not believe he had been a success as a writer, not as he wished to define success. He needed to make

1919-719: The Diet appealed to the Habsburg court with demands for representative government and civil liberties. These events resulted in Klemens von Metternich , the Austrian chancellor and foreign minister, resigning. The demands of the Diet were agreed upon on 18 March by Emperor Ferdinand . Although Hungary would remain part of the monarchy through personal union with the emperor, a constitutional government would be founded. The Diet then passed

2020-721: The Habsburg Austrian Empire , the Republic of San Marco later joined the Kingdom of Sardinia in an attempt, led by the latter, to unite northern Italy against foreign (mainly Austrian but also French) domination. However, the First Italian War of Independence ended in the defeat of Sardinia, and Austrian forces reconquered the Republic of San Marco on 28 August 1849 following a long siege. Based on

2121-547: The National Liberals , ended with a popular march to Christiansborg on 21 March. The new king, Frederick VII , met the liberals' demands and installed a new Cabinet that included prominent leaders of the National Liberal Party . The national-liberal movement wanted to abolish absolutism, but retain a strongly centralized state. The king accepted a new constitution agreeing to share power with

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2222-545: The Playwrights' Company , which he had helped to establish along with Maxwell Anderson, S. N. Behrman, Sidney Howard, and Robert E. Sherwood. Of his later plays, the most successful was the fantasy Dream Girl (1945) in which an over-imaginative girl encounters unexpected romance in reality. Rice's last play was Cue for Passion (1958), a modern psycho-analytical variation of the Hamlet theme in which Diana Wynyard played

2323-480: The Proclamation of Islaz . Despite its rapid gains and popular backing, the new administration was marked by conflicts between the radical wing and more conservative forces, especially over the issue of land reform . Two successive abortive coups weakened the new government, and its international status was always contested by Russia. After managing to rally a degree of sympathy from Ottoman political leaders,

2424-772: The Prussians in the Grand Duchy of Posen (or the Greater Poland region), a part of Prussia since its annexation in 1815. The Poles tried to establish a Polish political entity, but refused to cooperate with the Germans and the Jews. The Germans decided they were better off with the status quo, so they assisted the Prussian governments in recapturing control. In the long-term, the uprising stimulated nationalism among both

2525-547: The Pulitzer Prize for Drama for its realistic chronicle of life in the slums. "With fifty characters casually strolling through it," Brooks Atkinson wrote, "it looked like an improvisation...Based on the facade of a house at 25 West 65th Street, which Rice selected as typical, the tall massive setting caught the tone and humanity of a decaying brownstone." The script had been rejected by most producers who read it, and director George Cukor abandoned it as un-stageable after

2626-592: The Schleswig-Holstein Question unanswered. The Duchy of Schleswig , a region containing both Danes (a North Germanic population) and Germans (a West Germanic population), was a part of the Danish monarchy, but remained a duchy separate from the Kingdom of Denmark. Spurred by pan-German sentiment, the Germans of Schleswig took up arms in protest at a new policy announced by Denmark's National Liberal government which would have fully integrated

2727-593: The Sonderbund ("separate alliance") in 1845 led to a short civil conflict in November 1847 in which around 100 people were killed. The Sonderbund was decisively defeated by the Protestant cantons, which had a larger population. A new constitution of 1848 ended the almost-complete independence of the cantons, transforming Switzerland into a federal state . Polish people mounted a military insurrection against

2828-502: The Times called him "the theater's most influential reviewer of his time." Atkinson became a Times theater critic in the 1920s and his reviews became very influential. He insisted on leaving the drama desk during World War II to report on the war, and received the Pulitzer Prize in 1947 for his work as the Moscow correspondent for the Times . He returned to the theater beat in the late 1940s, until his retirement in 1960. Atkinson

2929-712: The Venetian Lagoon , the Republic of San Marco extended into most of Venetia , or the Terraferma territory of the Republic of Venice , suppressed 51 years earlier in the French Revolutionary Wars . In the Duchy of Modena and Reggio , Duke Francis V attempted to respond militarily to the first attempts at armed revolt, but faced with the approach of Bolognese volunteers to support the insurgents, in order to avoid bloodshed he preferred to leave

3030-752: The bourgeoisie feared and distanced themselves from the working poor . Many unskilled laborers toiled from 12 to 15 hours per day when they had work, living in squalid, disease-ridden slums. Traditional artisans felt the pressure of industrialization , having lost their guilds . The liberalization of trade laws and the growth of factories had increased the gulf between master tradesmen, and journeymen and apprentices, whose numbers increased disproportionately by 93% from 1815 to 1848 in Germany. Significant proletarian unrest had occurred in Lyon in 1831 and 1834 , and Prague in 1844. Jonathan Sperber has suggested that in

3131-560: The serfs . It started on 15 March 1848, when Hungarian patriots organized mass demonstrations in Pest and Buda (today Budapest) which forced the imperial governor to accept their 12 points of demands , which included the demand for freedom of press, an independent Hungarian ministry residing in Buda-Pest and responsible to a popularly elected parliament, the formation of a National Guard, complete civil and religious equality, trial by jury,

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3232-485: The " Belgian Legion " attempted to cross the Belgian frontier. There were two divisions which were formed. The first group, travelling by train, were stopped and quickly disarmed at Quiévrain on 26 March 1848. The second group crossed the border on 29 March and headed for Brussels. They were confronted by Belgian troops at the hamlet of Risquons-Tout and defeated. Several smaller groups managed to infiltrate Belgium, but

3333-452: The 19th century. Both liberal reformers and radical politicians were reshaping national governments. Technological change was revolutionizing the life of the working classes. A popular press extended political awareness, and new values and ideas such as popular liberalism , nationalism and socialism began to emerge. Some historians emphasize the serious crop failures, particularly those of 1846, that produced hardship among peasants and

3434-674: The Americas. Peasant discontent in the 1840s grew in intensity. Peasant occupations of lost communal land increased in many areas; those convicted of wood theft in the Rhenish Palatinate increased from 100,000 in 1829–30 to 185,000 in 1846–47. In the years 1845 and 1846, a potato blight caused a subsistence crisis in Northern Europe , and encouraged the raiding of manorial potato stocks in Silesia in 1847. The effects of

3535-516: The April laws that established equality before the law, a legislature, a hereditary constitutional monarchy, and an end to the transfer and restrictions of land use. The revolution grew into a war for independence from the Habsburg monarchy when Josip Jelačić , Ban of Croatia , crossed the border to restore their control. The new government, led by Lajos Kossuth , was initially successful against

3636-517: The Czech Nation , which emphasised a national lineage of conflict with the Germans, or the popular patriotic Liederkranz (song-circles) that were held across Germany: patriotic and belligerent songs about Schleswig had dominated the Würzburg national song festival in 1845. 'Socialism' in the 1840s was a term without a consensus definition, meaning different things to different people, but

3737-738: The Habsburg forces. Although Hungary took a national united stand for its freedom, some minorities of the Kingdom of Hungary, including the Serbs of Vojvodina, the Romanians of Transylvania and some Slovaks of Upper Hungary supported the Habsburg Emperor and fought against the Hungarian Revolutionary Army. Eventually, after one and a half years of fighting, the revolution was crushed when Russian Tsar Nicholas I marched into Hungary with over 300,000 troops. As result of

3838-638: The Harlem "Voodoo Macbeth," directed by the 21-year-old Orson Welles ; the collaborative historical play "Lost Colony," staged on Roanoke Island in North Carolina; and openings of interesting plays all up and down the East Coast. His reviews were reputed to have the power to make or break a new stage production: for example, his panning in 1940 of Lawrence Riley 's Return Engagement led to that comedy's closure after only eight performances, despite

3939-508: The People (1933) was a play particularly close to Rice's heart. It dealt with "the misfortunes of a typical skilled workman and his family, helplessly engulfed in the tide of national adversity," as its author described it. Rice engaged an activist-minded cast and noted set designer Aline Bernstein to design the fifteen different sets that the ambitious play called for. We, the People failed amid what Rice called "agitated" reviews. A 1932 trip to

4040-585: The Poles and the Germans and brought civil equality to the Jews. A Romanian liberal and Romantic nationalist uprising began in June in the principality of Wallachia . Its goals were administrative autonomy, abolition of serfdom, and popular self-determination. It was closely connected with the 1848 unsuccessful revolt in Moldavia , it sought to overturn the administration imposed by Imperial Russian authorities under

4141-486: The Prussian victory in 1864 . From March 1848 through July 1849, the Habsburg Austrian Empire was threatened by revolutionary movements, which often had a nationalist character. The empire, ruled from Vienna , included German-speaking Austrians , Hungarians , Czechs , Poles , Croats , Ukrainians , Romanians , Slovaks , Slovenes , Serbs and Italians , all of whom attempted in the course of

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4242-545: The Revolution split, and in the end, the conservative aristocracy defeated it, forcing many liberal Forty-Eighters into exile. Denmark had been governed by a system of absolute monarchy ( King's Law ) since the 17th century. King Christian VIII , a moderate reformer but still an absolutist, died in January 1848 during a period of rising opposition from farmers and liberals. The demands for constitutional monarchy, led by

4343-622: The Revolution was ultimately isolated by the intervention of Russian diplomats. In September 1848 by agreement with the Ottomans, Russia invaded and put down the revolution. According to Vasile Maciu, the failures were attributable in Wallachia to foreign intervention, in Moldavia to the opposition of the feudalists, and in Transylvania to the failure of the campaigns of General Józef Bem , and later to Austrian repression. In later decades,

4444-523: The Soviet Union and to Germany, where he heard Hitler and Goebbels speak, provided material for Rice's next plays. The Reichstag fire trial is an element in Judgement Day (1934), and conflicting American and Soviet ideologies form the subject of the conversation-piece Between Two Worlds (1934). After the failure of these plays, Rice returned to Broadway in 1937 to write and direct for

4545-682: The United States with three separate companies and was produced in Argentina, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Scotland and South Africa. The author ultimately earned $ 100,000 from his first work for the stage. None of his later plays earned him as much as On Trial. The play was adapted for the cinema three times, in 1917, 1928, and 1939. Political and social issues occupied Rice's attention in this period as well. World War I and Woodrow Wilson 's conservatism confirmed him in his criticism of

4646-596: The aim of removing the old monarchical structures and creating independent nation-states , as envisioned by romantic nationalism . The revolutions spread across Europe after an initial revolution began in Italy in January 1848. Over 50 countries were affected, but with no significant coordination or cooperation among their respective revolutionaries. Some of the major contributing factors were widespread dissatisfaction with political leadership, demands for more participation in government and democracy, demands for freedom of

4747-919: The blight were most severely manifested in the Great Irish Famine , but also caused famine-like conditions in the Scottish Highlands and throughout continental Europe . Harvests of rye in the Rhineland were 20% of previous levels, while the Czech potato harvest was reduced by half. These reduced harvests were accompanied by a steep rise in prices (the cost of wheat more than doubled in France and Habsburg Italy). There were 400 French food riots from 1846 to 1847, while German socio-economic protests increased from 28 from 1830 to 1839, to 103 from 1840 to 1847. Central to long-term peasant grievances were

4848-770: The borders of the Habsburg Empire, and formation of a separate region with a political self-governance. During 18–19 March, a series of riots known as the March Unrest ( Marsoroligheterna ) took place in the Swedish capital of Stockholm. Declarations with demands of political reform were spread in the city and a barricade at Norra Smedjegatan was stormed by the military. In the end, there were 18–30 casualties in total. Switzerland, already an alliance of republics, also saw an internal struggle. The attempted secession of seven Catholic cantons to form an alliance known as

4949-668: The city promising a constitution and amnesties. On 21 March 1848 he left for Bolzano. A provisional government was established in Modena. In the Papal States , an internal revolt ousted Pope Pius IX from his temporal powers and led to the establishment of the Roman Republic . The municipalities of Menton and Roquebrune united and obtained independence as the Principality of Monaco . The "February Revolution" in France

5050-450: The course of 1847. With the exception of the Netherlands, there was a strong correlation among the countries that were most deeply affected by the industrial shock of 1847 and those that underwent a revolution in 1848. The situation in the German states was similar. Parts of Prussia were beginning to industrialize. During the decade of the 1840s, mechanized production in the textile industry brought about inexpensive clothing that undercut

5151-422: The defeat, Hungary was thus placed under brutal martial law. The leading rebels like Kossuth fled into exile or were executed. In the long run, the passive resistance following the revolution, along with the crushing Austrian defeat in the 1866 Austro-Prussian War , led to the Austro-Hungarian Compromise (1867), which marked the birth of the Austro-Hungarian Empire . The center of the Ukrainian national movement

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5252-421: The duchy into Denmark. The German population in Schleswig and Holstein revolted, inspired by the Protestant clergy. The German states sent in an army, but Danish victories in 1849 led to the Treaty of Berlin (1850) and the London Protocol (1852) . They reaffirmed the sovereignty of the King of Denmark, while prohibiting union with Denmark. The violation of the latter provision led to renewed warfare in 1863 and

5353-402: The family, made up for the affection and attention his father withheld. A child of the tenements, Rice spent much of his youth reading, to his family's consternation, and later observed, "Nothing in my life has been more helpful than the simple act of joining the library." Because of his need to support his family when his father's epilepsy worsened, Rice did not complete high school, and he took

5454-475: The handmade products of German tailors. Reforms ameliorated the most unpopular features of rural feudalism , but industrial workers remained dissatisfied with these reforms and pressed for greater change. Urban workers had no choice but to spend half of their income on food, which consisted mostly of bread and potatoes. As a result of harvest failures, food prices soared and the demand for manufactured goods decreased, causing an increase in unemployment. During

5555-432: The harshest and most illuminating play about modern society [Broadway had ever seen]." Dorothy Parker and Alexander Woollcott were enthusiastic. Other reviewers spoke of him, hyperbolically, as a writer who might become America's Ibsen. Directed with great ingenuity by Philip Moeller , designed by Lee Simonson , and produced by the Theatre Guild , the play starred Dudley Digges (actor) and Edward G. Robinson , then at

5656-426: The illustrator Art Young . After writing four more plays of no special distinction, Rice startled audiences in 1923 with his next contribution to the theatre, the boldly expressionistic The Adding Machine , which he wrote in 17 days. A satire about the growing regimentation of life in the machine age , the play tells the story of the life, death and bizarre afterlife of a dull bookkeeper, Mr. Zero. When Mr. Zero,

5757-433: The increased popularity of the older Morgenbladet in Norway and the Aftonbladet in Sweden. 'Nationalism' believed in uniting people bound by (some mix of) common languages , culture , religion , shared history , and of course immediate geography ; there were also irredentist movements. Nationalism had developed a broader appeal during the pre-1848 period, as seen in the František Palacký 's 1836 History of

5858-560: The language of the 1840s, 'democracy' meant replacing an electorate of property-owners with universal male suffrage . 'Liberalism' fundamentally meant consent of the governed , restriction of church and state power, republican government , freedom of the press and the individual. The 1840s had seen the emergence of radical liberal publications such as Rheinische Zeitung (1842); Le National and La Réforme (1843) in France; Ignaz Kuranda 's Grenzboten (1841) in Austria; Lajos Kossuth 's Pesti Hírlap (1841) in Hungary, as well as

5959-414: The loss of communal lands, forest restrictions (such as the French Forest Code of 1827), and remaining feudal structures, notably the robot (labor obligations) that existed among the serfs and oppressed peasantry of the Habsburg lands . Aristocratic wealth (and corresponding power) was synonymous with the ownership of farmlands and effective control over the peasants . Peasant grievances exploded during

6060-500: The middle class reformers and the working class radicals. German reformers argued endlessly without finalizing their results. Caught off guard at first, the aristocracy and their allies plot a return to power. The revolutions suffer a series of defeats in summer 1849. Reactionaries returned to power and many leaders of the revolution went into exile. Some social reforms proved permanent, and years later nationalists in Germany, Italy, and Hungary gained their objectives. The first of

6161-454: The numerous revolutions to occur in 1848 in Italy came in Palermo, Sicily, starting in January 1848 . There had been several previous revolts against Bourbon rule; this one produced an independent state that lasted only 16 months before the Bourbons came back. During those months, the constitution was quite advanced for its time in liberal democratic terms, as was the proposal of a unified Italian confederation of states. The revolt's failure

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6262-470: The old governments rushed home to seize the moment. In France, the monarchy was once again overthrown and replaced by a republic . In a number of major German and Italian states, and in Austria, the old leaders were forced to grant liberal constitutions. The Italian and German states seemed to be rapidly forming unified nations. Austria gave Hungarians and Czechs liberal grants of autonomy and national status. In France, bloody street battles exploded between

6363-484: The peasantry; local officials were expected to understand it and the Ruthenian clergy was to be equalized in their rights with the clergy of all other denominations. On 2 May 1848, the Supreme Ruthenian Council was established. The council (1848–1851) was headed by the Greek-Catholic Bishop Gregory Yakhimovich and consisted of 30 permanent members. Its main goal was the administrative division of Galicia into Western (Polish) and Eastern (Ruthenian/Ukrainian) parts within

6464-417: The period after 1825, poorer urban workers (particularly day laborers, factory workers and artisans) saw their purchasing power decline relatively steeply: urban meat consumption in Belgium, France and Germany stagnated or declined after 1830, despite growing populations. The economic Panic of 1847 increased urban unemployment: 10,000 Viennese factory workers lost jobs, and 128 Hamburg firms went bankrupt over

6565-436: The powerful impact Velazquez had on him and, in Mexico, of enjoying the work of Diego Rivera and the Mexican Muralists, artists who shared his political views. He was close friends with Japanese-American modernist painter Yasuo Kuniyoshi . Elmer Rice lived for many years on a wooded estate in Stamford, Connecticut until his death in Southampton, England in 1967 of pneumonia after suffering a heart attack. Obituaries took note of

6666-416: The press , other demands made by the working class for economic rights, the upsurge of nationalism , and the European potato failure , which triggered mass starvation, migration, and civil unrest. The uprisings were led by temporary coalitions of workers and reformers, including figures from the middle and upper classes (the bourgeoisie ); however, the coalitions did not hold together for long. Many of

6767-399: The profession in 1914, he was always to retain a cynical outlook about lawyers, but his two years in a law office provided him with material for several plays, most notably Counsellor-at-Law (1931). Courtroom dramas became a Rice specialty. Needing to make a living, he decided to try writing full-time. It was a wise decision. His first play, On Trial (1914), a melodramatic murder mystery,

6868-411: The realism of the new play The Front Page , "No one who has ground his heels in the grime of a police headquarters press room will complain that this argot misrepresents the gentlemen of the press." In 1932 Atkinson dropped the J. from his byline and embraced the witty, direct writing style that became his hallmark. Atkinson, stepping into the role of major progressive thinker and writer of his time,

6969-434: The rebels returned and gained their goals. Belgium did not see major unrest in 1848; it had already undergone a liberal reform after the Revolution of 1830 and thus its constitutional system and its monarchy survived. A number of small local riots broke out, concentrated in the sillon industriel industrial region of the provinces of Liège and Hainaut . The most serious threat of revolutionary contagion, however,

7070-491: The reinforced Belgian border troops succeeded and the defeat at Risquons-Tout effectively ended the revolutionary threat to Belgium. The situation in Belgium began to recover that summer after a good harvest, and fresh elections returned a strong majority to the governing party. Brooks Atkinson Justin Brooks Atkinson (November 28, 1894 – January 14, 1984) was an American theatre critic . He worked for The New York Times from 1922 to 1960. In his obituary,

7171-411: The revolution to achieve either autonomy, independence, or even hegemony over other nationalities. The nationalist picture was further complicated by the simultaneous events in the German states, which moved toward greater German national unity. The Hungarian Revolution of 1848 was the longest in Europe, crushed in August 1849 by Austrian and Russian armies. Nevertheless, it had a major effect in freeing

7272-451: The revolution, to address the problem of unemployment, workshops were organized for men interested in construction work. Officials also set up workshops for women when they felt they were excluded. Artisans and unemployed workers destroyed industrial machines when they threatened to give employers more power over them. Rural population growth had led to food shortages, land pressure, and migration, both within and from Europe, especially to

7373-794: The revolutionary year of 1848, yet were often disconnected from urban revolutionary movements: the revolutionary Sándor Petőfi 's popular nationalist rhetoric in Budapest did not translate into any success with the Magyar peasantry, while the Viennese democrat Hans Kudlich reported that his efforts to galvanize the Austrian peasantry had "disappeared in the great sea of indifference and phlegm". Despite forceful and often violent efforts of established and reactionary powers to keep them down, disruptive ideas gained popularity: democracy , liberalism , radicalism , nationalism , and socialism . They demanded

7474-598: The revolutions were quickly suppressed, as tens of thousands of people were killed, and even more were forced into exile. Significant lasting reforms included the abolition of serfdom in Austria and Hungary, the end of absolute monarchy in Denmark, and the introduction of representative democracy in the Netherlands. The revolutions were most important in France, the Netherlands, Italy , the Austrian Empire , and

7575-540: The right name. There was only one Brooks Atkinson in New York City . Atkinson was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1960. He came briefly out of retirement in 1965 to write a favorable review of Man of La Mancha ; his review was printed on the first page of the show's original souvenir program. After his retirement, he became a member of The Players who organized

7676-533: The second day of rehearsals. Rice took over the direction himself and proved that it was highly stageworthy, if unconventional in its narrative style and disorienting naturalism. Like The Adding Machine, the play's break with the conventions of stage realism was part of its appeal. Rice's plays of the 1930s included The Left Bank (1931), a comedy dramatizing an expatriate's superficial attempt to escape from American materialism in Paris, and Counsellor-at-Law (1931),

7777-526: The south and the west of Germany, with large popular assemblies and mass demonstrations. Led by well-educated students and intellectuals, they demanded German national unity , freedom of the press , and freedom of assembly . The uprisings were poorly coordinated, but had in common a rejection of traditional, autocratic political structures in the 39 independent states of the German Confederation . The middle-class and working-class components of

7878-461: The start of his acting career. Ironically, it made its author no money at all. (Adapted as an innovatively staged musical in 2007, The Adding Machine enjoyed a successful Off-Broadway run in 2008.) When Dorothy Parker was at work on her play the following year (loosely based on fellow Algonquin Round Table member Robert Benchley , his marital problems, and the extra-marital temptations he

7979-587: The states of the German Confederation that would make up the German Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The wave of uprisings ended in October 1849. The revolutions arose from such a wide variety of causes that it is difficult to view them as resulting from a coherent movement or set of social phenomena. Numerous changes had been taking place in European society throughout the first half of

8080-504: The status quo. (He had been firmly converted to socialism in his teens, he said, by reading George Bernard Shaw , H. G. Wells , John Galsworthy , Maxim Gorky , Frank Norris , and Upton Sinclair .) He frequented Greenwich Village , then the most bohemian part of New York City, in the late 1910s and became friendly with many socially conscious writers and activists, including the African-American poet James Weldon Johnson and

8181-440: The success of Riley's previous comedy, Personal Appearance , which had lasted for over 500 performances on Broadway . Atkinson had already been dubbed "the conscience of the theater" because of his openness to earnest experimental theater, his sense of duty toward supporting theater that addressed important moral and social issues of the day, and his firm conviction that theater could educate and foment serious public debate, but he

8282-477: The unified Kingdom of Italy and remained in force, with changes, until 1948 ) and by Pope Pius IX (Fundamental Statute). However, only King Charles Albert maintained the statute even after the end of the riots. Revolts broke out throughout the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia , such as the Five Days of Milan which marked the beginning of the First Italian War of Independence . After declaring independence from

8383-530: The working urban poor. Large swaths of the nobility were discontented with royal absolutism or near-absolutism. In 1846, there had been an uprising of Polish nobility in Austrian Galicia , which was only countered when peasants, in turn, rose up against the nobles . Additionally, an uprising by democratic forces against Prussia , planned but not actually carried out, occurred in Greater Poland . The middle and working classes thus shared

8484-471: Was elected as president . In 1851, he staged a coup d'état and established himself as a dictatorial emperor of the Second French Empire . Alexis de Tocqueville remarked in his Recollections of the period, "society was cut in two: those who had nothing united in common envy, and those who had anything united in common terror." The "March Revolution" in the German states took place in

8585-485: Was a great success and ran for 365 performances in New York. George M. Cohan offered to buy the rights for $ 30,000, a proposition Rice declined largely because he did not believe Cohan could be serious. Co-authored with a friend, Frank Harris (not the famed Oscar Wilde biographer), the play was purportedly the first American drama to employ the technique of reverse-chronology, telling the story from its conclusion to its starting-point. On Trial then went on tour throughout

8686-401: Was a prolific, even tireless writer. His plays over the next five years included the unproduced The Sidewalks of New York (1925), Is He Guilty? (1927) and The Gay White Way (1928) and two collaborations, Wake Up, Jonathan (1928) with Hatcher Hughes, a dramatist unknown today and Cock Robin (1929) with Philip Barry, a Broadway name equal to Rice's. None of these plays were a success. Rice

8787-609: Was a strong supporter of the Works Progress Administration , particularly the new Federal Theatre Project , Roosevelt's attempt in the midst of the unemployment and poverty of the Great Depression to extend welfare support to out of work theater professionals and to create a theater responsive to the American public in range and diversity. Atkinson travelled extensively to see productions such as

8888-431: Was a theatre professional by this time: open to collaboration, increasingly interested in producing and directing his own plays. In the 1930s, he even bought a Broadway house, the famed Belasco Theatre . Rice's second hit (after The Adding Machine ) proved to be his most lasting literary accomplishment. Originally entitled Landscape with Figures, Street Scene (1929), later the subject of an opera by Kurt Weill , won

8989-597: Was an episodic play without words, "in which speech is indicated by gesture, by a series of situations in which there was no need for speech." The Theatre Guild turned the script down flat; Broadway would never be ready for the level of experimentation that inspired Rice, a reality that was a source of continuous frustration for him. Rice was married in 1915 to Hazel Levy and had two children with her, Margaret and Robert. After his divorce in 1942, he married actress Betty Field with whom he had three children, John, Judy and Paul. Field and Rice divorced in 1956. Although born into

9090-595: Was assistant to the drama critic. In 1922, he became the editor of the New York Times Book Review , and in 1925 the drama critic. Atkinson married Oriana MacIlveen, a writer, in August 1926. On the drama desk, Atkinson quickly became known for his commitment to new kinds of theater (he was one of the first critical admirers of Eugene O'Neill ) for his interest in all kinds of drama, including off-Broadway productions. In 1928, he said admiringly about

9191-690: Was born in Melrose, Massachusetts , to Jonathan H. Atkinson, a salesman statistician, and Garafelia Taylor. As a boy, he printed his own newspaper (using movable type ), and planned a career in journalism . He attended Harvard University , where he began writing for the Boston Herald . He graduated from Harvard in 1917, and worked at the Springfield Daily News and the Boston Evening Transcript , where he

9292-705: Was captivated by him. Atkinson wrote favorably about the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and against the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek , which he saw as reactionary and corrupt. After visiting Yenan, he wrote that the Communist movement's political system was best described as an "agrarian or peasant democracy, or as a farm labor party." Atkinson viewed the Chinese Communist Party as communist in name only and more democratic than totalitarian. The Times effusively titled his article Yenan,

9393-666: Was elected as the eighth president in 1939, and P.E.N. He was the first director of the New York office of the Federal Theatre Project , but resigned in 1936 to protest government censorship of the Project's " Living Newspaper " dramatization of Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia. An outspoken defender of free speech, he left that position with a "blast of scorn" at the Roosevelt administration's efforts to control artistic expression. (In 1932, Rice reluctantly supported

9494-463: Was grappling with) and needed a co-author, she approached Elmer Rice, now acknowledged as the Broadway "boy wonder" of the moment. It was a smooth collaboration and resulted in a brief affair between Parker and the already-married Rice, begun at Rice's insistent urging. The run of the play did not go smoothly, however; despite good reviews, Close Harmony (1924) closed quickly and was forgotten. Rice

9595-706: Was in Galicia , which is today divided between Ukraine and Poland. On 19 April 1848, a group of representatives led by the Greek Catholic clergy launched a petition to the Austrian Emperor. It expressed wishes that in those regions of Galicia where the Ruthenian (Ukrainian) population represented the majority, the Ukrainian language should be taught at schools and used to announce official decrees for

9696-803: Was often not comfortable with the influence that he wielded over the Broadway box office. After Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Atkinson attempted to enlist in the US Navy but was refused. He requested a reassignment to war coverage, and The New York Times sent him to the front lines as a war correspondent in China , where he covered the Second Sino-Japanese War until 1945. While in China, he visited Mao Tse-tung in Yenan and

9797-639: Was portrayed by the actor Jon Favreau in the 1994 film Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle . Revolutions of 1848 The revolutions of 1848 , known in some countries as the springtime of the peoples or the springtime of nations , were a series of revolutions throughout Europe over the course of more than one year, from 1848 to 1849. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in European history to date. The revolutions were essentially democratic and liberal in nature, with

9898-666: Was posed by Belgian émigré groups from France. In 1830 the Belgian Revolution had broken out inspired by the revolution occurring in France, and Belgian authorities feared that a similar 'copycat' phenomenon might occur in 1848. Shortly after the revolution in France, Belgian migrant workers living in Paris were encouraged to return to Belgium to overthrow the monarchy and establish a republic. Belgian authorities expelled Karl Marx himself from Brussels in early March on accusations of having used part of his inheritance to arm Belgian revolutionaries. Around 6,000 armed émigrés of

9999-602: Was reversed 12 years later as the Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies collapsed in 1860–61 with the unification of Italy . On 11 February 1848, Leopold II of Tuscany , first cousin of Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria , granted the Constitution, with the general approval of his subjects. The Habsburg example was followed by Charles Albert of Sardinia ( Albertine Statute ; later became the constitution of

10100-479: Was sparked by the suppression of the campagne des banquets . This revolution was driven by nationalist and republican ideals among the French general public, who believed the people should rule themselves. It ended the constitutional monarchy of Louis-Philippe , and led to the creation of the French Second Republic . After an interim period, Louis-Napoleon , the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte ,

10201-461: Was typically used within a context of more power for workers in a system based on worker ownership of the means of production . These concepts together—democracy, liberalism, nationalism and socialism, in the sense described above—came to be encapsulated in the political term radicalism . The world was astonished in spring 1848 when revolutions appeared in so many places and seemed on the verge of success everywhere. Agitators who had been exiled by

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