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Important Events of the 1920s

1920

Movies
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, starring John Barrymore and Nita Naldi; Way Down East, starring Lillian Gish and Richard Barthelmess, directed by D. W. Griffith; The Mark of Zorro, starring Douglas Fairbanks; Pollyanna, starring Mary Pickford; The Kid, starring Charlie Chaplin.
Fiction
F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise and Flappers and Philosophers; Sinclair Lewis, Main Street; Sherwood Anderson, Poor White; Willa Cather, Youth and the Bright Medusa; Zane Grey, The Man of the Forest; Peter B. Kyne, Kindred of the Dust; Harold Bell Wright, The Re-Creation of Brian Kent; James Oliver Curwood, The River's End; Joseph C. Lincoln, The Portygee.
Poetry
T. S. Eliot, Poems; Ezra Pound, Umbra and Hugh Selwyn Mauberley; William Carlos Williams, Kora in Hell; Edna St. Vincent Millay, A Few Figs from Thistles; Carl Sandburg, Smoke and Steel; E. A. Robinson, Lancelot.
Popular Songs
Ted Lewis, "When My Baby Smiles at Me"; Paul Whiteman, 'Whispering"; Al Jolson, "My Mammy" and "Avalon"; Bert Williams, 'When the Moon Shines on the Moonshine"; Mamie Smith, "Crazy Blues"; Van & Schenck, "After You Get What You Want, You Don't Want It"; Ben Selvin, "Dardanella"; Nora Bayes, "Japanese Sandman"; Original Dixieland Jazz Band, "Margie"; Billy Murray, "I'll see You in C-U-B-A."
  • Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, and Katherine Dreier organize the New York Societé Anonyme for promoting modern art.
  • The Pavley-Oukrainsky Ballet of the Chicago Civic Opera is the first American Ballet Company.
  • The Julliard Foundation is established in New York to encourage music in the United States.
  • Joseph Stella paints Brooklyn Bridge,
  • Thomas Hart Benton paints Portrait of Josie West.
  • Arturo Toscanini and the LaScala Orchestra give their first American performances.
  • Jo Davidson sculpts Gertrude Stein.
  • Lorado Taft sculpts Fountain of Time.
2 Feb.
Eugene O'Neill's Beyond the Horizon opens.
7 June
George White Scandals opens with songs by George Gershwin.
1 Nov.
Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones opens.
21 Dec.
Zona Gale's Miss Lulu Bett opens.

1921

Movies
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, starring Rudolph Valentino; Tol'able David, starring Richard Barthelmess; The Three Musketeers, starring Douglas Fairbanks; Little Lord Fauntleroy, starring Mary Pickford.
Fiction
John Dos Passos, Three Soldiers; Sherwood Anderson, The Triumph of the Egg; Ring W. Lardner, The Big Town; Donald Ogden Stewart, A Parody Outline of History; Booth Tarkington, Alice Adams; Dorothy Canfield, The Brimming Cup; Zane Grey, The Mysterious Rider; Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence.
Poetry
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Second April; Marianne Moore, Poems; E. A. Robinson, Collected Poems.
Popular Songs
Fanny Brice, "Second Hand Rose"; Van &, Schenck, "Ain't We Got Fun?"; Lottie Gee, "I'm Just Wild About Harry"; Eddie Cantor, "Ma! (He's Making Eyes at Me)"; Charles Davis, "Shuffle Along"; Eubie Blake, "Bandana Days"; Al Jolson, "April Showers"; Isham Jones, "Wabash Blues"; John Steel, "Say It With Music"; Zez Confrey, "Kitten on the Keys."
  • Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges has its world premiere at the Chicago Civic Opera.
  • Charles Ives composes Thirty-Four Songs for Voices and Piano.
  • Howard Hansen composes Concerto for Organ, Strings, and Harp.
  • The Eastman School of Music opens in Rochester, New York.
  • Stuart Davis paints Bull Durham.
  • Isadora Duncan opens a dance school in Moscow.
  • Charles Demuth paints Roofs and Steeples.
  • Arthur G. Dove paints Thunderstorm.
  • John Marin paints Off Stonington.
  • Phillips Gallery opens in Washington, D.C.—the first American museum of modern art.
23 May
Shuffle Along, with music by Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle, opens; it is the first black Broadway musical directed and written by blacks.
1 June
Eugene O'Neill's Gold opens.
2 Nov.
Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie opens.
10 Nov.
Eugene O'Neill's The Straw opens.

1922

Movies
The Prisoner of Zenda, starring Ramon Novarro; Orphans of the Storm, starring Lillian and Dorothy Gish, directed by D. W. Griffith; Blood and Sand, starring Rudolph Valentino; Foolish Wives, directed by and starring Erich Von Stroheim; Robin Hood, starring Douglas Fairbanks; Nanook of the North, documentary directed by Robert Flaherty.
Fiction
Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt; James Joyce, Ulysses; E. E. Cummings, The Enormous Room; Willa Cather, One of Ours; Emerson Hough, The Covered Wagon; F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tales of the Jazz Age.
Poetry
T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land.
Popular Songs
Al Jolson, "Toot Toot Tootsie"; Paul Whiteman, "Chicago"; Harry Creamer & Turner Layton, "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans"; Irene Bordoni, "Do It Again"; Sophie Tucker, "Lovin' Sam the Sheik of Alabam' "; Gallagher & Sheean, "Mr. Gallagher and Mr. Sheean"; The Georgians, "I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate"; Van & Schenck, "Carolina in the Morning."
  • George Antheil composes Airplane Sonata and Death of the Machines.
  • Aaron Copland composes Passacaglia for Piano.
  • George Bellows paints The White House.
  • Maurice Prendergast paints Acadia.
  • The Baltimore Museum of Art opens.
  • Howard Hansen composes Symphony #1.
9 Mar.
Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape opens.
23 May
Abie's Irish Rose by Anne Nichols opens; this much-ridiculed comedy about a Catholic/Jewish marriage sets a record of 2,327 Broadway performances.
7 Nov.
Rain, based on W. Somerset Maugham's "Miss Thompson," starring Jeanne Eagels, opens.

1923

Movies
Safety Last, starring Harold Lloyd; The Ten Commandments, starring Richard Dix and Rod LaRocque, directed by Cecil B. DeMille; The Covered Wagon, starring Lois Wilson; The Hunchback of Notre Dame, starring Lon Chaney; The Pilgrim, starring Charlie Chaplin.
Fiction
Sherwood Anderson, Horses and Men and Many Marriages; Willa Cather, A Lost Lady; Ernest Hemingway, 3 Stories & 10 Poems.
Poetry
E. E. Cummings, Tulips and Chimneys; Robert Frost, New Hampshire; Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver; Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet; Wallace Stevens, Harmonium.
Popular Songs
Billy Jones, 'Yes, We Have No Bananas"; Jelly Roll Morton, "Mr. Jelly Lord"; Van & Schenck, "Who's Sorry Now?" and That Old Gang of Mine"; Elisabeth Welch, "Charleston"; Wendell Hall, "It Ain't Gonna Rain No Mo' " Jones & Hare, "Barney Google"; Sophie Tucker, "You've Got to See Mamma Ev'ry Night or You Can't See Mamma at All"; Bessie Smith, "Down Hearted Blues"; Paul Whiteman, "Linger Awhile" and "Three O'Clock in the Morning."
  • Roger Sessions composes The Black Maskers.
  • George Bellows paints Between Rounds.
  • Charles Shuler paints Bucks County Barn.
  • Rockwell Kent paints Shadows of Evening.
  • Mikhail Mordkin ballet company, with Martha Graham, performs in the Greenwich Village Follies.
10 Feb.
Icebound by Owen Davis opens.
16 Feb.
Bessie Smith makes her first recordings ("Down Hearted Blues" and "Gulf Coast Blues").
19 Mar.
The Adding Machine by Elmer Rice opens; it is an early expressionistic drama.
30—31 Mar.
The first dance marathon in the United States is held in Audubon Ballroom, New York.
6 Apr.
Louis Armstrong records his first solo on "Chimes Blues" with King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band.
29 Oct.
Runnin Wild opens; the all-black musical with songs by James P. Johnson and Cecil Mack introduces "Charleston."

1924

Movies
The Thief of Baghdad, starring Douglas Fairbanks; Monsieur Beaucaire, starring Rudolph Valentino; Greed, starring ZaSu Pitts, directed by Erich Von Stroheim; He Who Gets Slapped, starring Lon Chaney; Sherlock Holmes, Jr., starring Buster Keaton; The Iron Horse, starring George O'Brien, directed by John Ford; Beau Brummel, starring John Barrymore.
Fiction
James Gould Cozzens, Confusion; Ring W. Lardner, How to Write Short Stories; Edith Wharton, Old New York; Louis Bromfield, The Green Bay Tree; Edna Ferber, So Big; Ernest Hemingway, in our time; Herman Melville, Billy Budd; Glenway Wescott, The Apple of the Eye.
Poetry
Robinson Jeffers, Tamar; Marianne Moore, Observations; Edgar Lee Masters, The New Spoon River Anthology; John Crowe Ransom, Chills and Fever.
Popular Songs
Blossom Seeley, "Alabamy Bound"; Marion Harris, "It Had to Be You"; Winnie Lightner, "Somebody Loves Me"; Mary Ellis & Dennis King, "Indian Love Call"; Isham Jones, "I'll See You in My Dreams"; Al Jolson, "California, Here I Come" and "The One I Love"; Fred & Adele Astaire & Cliff Edwards, "Fascinating Rhythm"; Walter Catlett, "Oh Lady, Be Good"; Grace Moore & John Steel, "What'll I Do?"; Cliff Edwards, "Just Give Me a June Night, the Moon-light, and You."
  • Aaron Copland composes Symphony for Organ and Orchestra.
  • John Alden Carpenter composes Skyscrapers.
  • George Bellows paints Dempsey and Firpo.
  • Georgia O'Keeffe paints Dark Abstraction.
  • Michel Fokine forms the American Ballet.
  • Arthur G. Dove paints Portrait of Ralph Dusenberry.
  • Serge Koussevitsky is appointed head of the Boston Symphony.
  • George Antheil composes Ballet Mécanique.
  • Ferde Grofé composes Mississippi Suite.
  • Charles Ives composes Three Pieces for Two Pianos.
  • Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer is formed with Louis B. Mayer president and Irving Thalberg second vice president and head of production.
5 Feb.
Hell-Bent fer Heaven by Hatcher Hughes opens.
18 Feb.
Bix Beiderbecke records "Fidgety Feet" and "Jazz Me Blues" with The Wolverines.
24 Feb.
George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue is performed by Paul Whiteman's orchestra in New York.
15 May
Eugene O'Neill's All God's Chillun Got Wings opens—the play is controversial because its subject is miscegenation.
2 Sept.
Rose Marie opens with songs by Rudolph Friml and Otto Harbach.
5 Sept.
What Price Glory? by Maxwell Anderson and Lawrence Stallings opens, starring Louis Wolheim and William Boyd.
Nov.
Duke Ellington's Washingtonians make their first recordings ("Choo Choo" and "Rainy Nights").
3 Nov.
Eugene O'Neill's S. S. Glencairn opens.
11 Nov.
Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms opens.
24 Nov.
They Knew What They Wanted by Sidney Howard opens.
1 Dec.
Lady, Be Good! opens with songs by George and Ira Gershwin; it stars Fred and Adele Astaire.
2 Dec.
The Student Prince opens with music by Sigmund Romberg.

1925

Movies
The Phantom of the Opera, starring Lon Chaney; Grass, directed by Merian C. Cooper; The Gold Rush, starring Charlie Chaplin; The Freshman, starring Harold Lloyd; The Merry Widow, starring Mae Murray and John Gilbert, directed by Erich Von Stroheim; The Big Parade, starring John Gilbert; Ben-Hur, starring Ramon Novarro and Francis X. Bushman.
Fiction
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby; Ernest Hemingway, In Our Time; Theodore Dreiser, An American Tragedy; Sinclair Lewis, Arrowsmith; John Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer; Ellen Glasgow, Barren Ground; Anita Loos, "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes"; John Erskine, The Private Life of Helen of Troy.
Poetry
E. E. Cummings, & and XLI Poems; T. S. Eliot, The Hollow Men; Robinson Jeffers, Roan Stallion, Tamar and Other Poems; Ezra Pound, A Draft of XVI Cantos; Amy Lowell, What's O'Clock; Countee Cullen, Color.
Popular Songs
Al Jolson, "Swanee" and "I'm Sitting on the Top of the World"; Louise Groody & Charles Winninger, "I Want to be Happy"; Louise Groody & John Barker, "Tea for Two"; Eddie Cantor, "If You Knew Susie Like I Know Susie"; Ben Bernie, "Sweet Georgia Brown"; Cliff Edwards, "Sleepy Time Gal"; Ethel Waters, "Dinah"; June Cochrane & Sterling Holloway, "Manhattan"; Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians, "Collegiate"; Vincent Lopez, "Always"; Gene Austin, "Yes Sir, That's My Baby" and "Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue;—Has Anybody Seen My Girl?"
  • John Alden Carpenter composes Jazz Orchestra Pieces.
  • Paul Whiteman's orchestra performs George Gershwin's 135th Street at Carnegie Hall in New York.
  • Edward Hopper paints House by the Railroad.
  • Man Ray paints Sugar Loaves.
  • Paul Manship sculpts Flight of Europa.
  • John D. Rockefeller funds the Cloisters in New York.
  • The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation is founded.
17 May
Garrick Gaieties opens with songs by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart.
1 Sept.-31 Oct.
The Denishawn dancers are the first American dance company to tour the Orient.
21 Sept.
The Vagabond King opens with music by Rudolph Friml.
22 Sept.
Sunny opens with songs by Jerome Kern, Otto Harbach, and Oscar Hammerstein II; it stars Marilyn Miller, Clifton Webb, and Jack Donahue.
12 Oct.
Craig's Wife by George Kelly opens.
12 Nov.
Louis Armstrong makes his first recording with the Hot Five ("Gut Bucket Blues").
3 Dec.
George Gershwin's Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra has its premiere at Carnegie Hall, New York.
8 Dec.
The Coconuts opens with songs by Irving Berlin; it stars the Marx Brothers.

1926

Movies
Beau Geste, starring Ronald Colman; The Strong Man, starring Harry Langdon; The Sea Beast, starring John Barrymore; What Price Glory?, starring Victor McLaglen and Edmund Lowe; The Black Pirate, starring Douglas Fairbanks (first Technicolor movie); La Boheme, starring Lillian Gish and John Gilbert; The Son of the Sheik, starring Rudolph Valentino; The Torrent, starring Greta Garbo.
Fiction
Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises; William Faulkner, Soldiers'Pay; Willa Cather, My Mortal Enemy; Edna Ferber, Show Boat; Ellen Glasgow, The Romantic Comedians; Ring W. Lardner, The Love Nest; Thornton Wilder, The Cabala; Thorne Smith, Topper; Earl Derr Biggers, The Chinese Parrot; F. Scott Fitzgerald, All the Sad Young Men.
Poetry
Hart Crane, White Buildings; Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues; Sara Teasdale, Dark of the Moon.
Popular Songs
Ann Pennington, "Black Bottom"; Melody Sheiks, "The Blue Room" and "The Girl Friend"; McKinney's Cotton Pickers, "If I Could Be with You One Hour To-Night"; Georgie Price, "Bye Bye Blackbird"; Abe Lyman, "What Can I Say After I Say I'm Sorry?"; Al Jolson, "Breezin Along With the Breeze"; Harry Richman, "The Birth of the Blues"; Eddie Cantor, "Baby Face"; Gertrude Lawrence, "Someone to Watch Over Me" and "Do-Do-Do"; Sophie Tucker, "When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along"; Louis Armstrong, "Heebie Jeebies"; Duke Ellington, "East St. Louis Toodle-oo."
  • Walt Kuhn paints Dressing Room.
  • Thomas Hart Benton paints The Lord Is My Shepherd.
  • Paul Manship sculpts Indian Hunter.
  • Bix Beiderbecke joins Frankie Trumbauer's band at the Arcadia Ballroom in Saint Louis.
  • Margaret H'Doubler establishes the first dance department at the University of Wisconsin.
23 Jan.
Eugene O'Neill's The Great God Brown opens.
17 Mar.
The Girl Friend opens with songs by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart.
18 Apr.
The first professional performance is given by Martha Graham & Trio at 48th Street Theater, New York.
19 June
George Antheil's Ballet Mécanique is performed in Paris.
15 Sept.
Jelly Roll Morton makes his first recordings with The Red Hot Peppers ("Black-bottom Stomp," "Smokehouse Blues," and "The Chant").
8 Nov.
Oh, Kay! opens with songs by George and Ira Gershwin; it stars Victor Moore and Gertrude Lawrence.
30 Nov.
The Desert Song opens with songs by Sigmund Romberg, Otto Harbach, and Oscar Hammerstein II.
30 Dec.
In Abraham's Bosom by Paul Green opens; it is an all-black drama,

1927

Movies
The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson; The Scarlet Letter, starring Lillian Gish; It, starring Clara Bow; The General, starring Buster Keaton; Wings, starring Buddy Rogers and Clara Bow, Underworld, starring George Bancroft, Evelyn Brent, and Clive Brook; Flesh and the Devil, starring John Gilbert and Greta Garbo; Seventh Heaven, starring Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell; Love, starring John Gilbert and Greta Garbo; The King of Kings, directed by Cecil B. DeMille; The Way of All Flesh, starring Emil Jannings.
Fiction
Conrad Aiken, Blue Voyage; James Branch Cabell, Something About Eve; Willa Cather, Death Comes to the Archbishop; Julia Peterkin, Black April; Upton Sinclair, Oil!; Edith Wharton, Twilight Sleep; S. S. Van Dine, The Canary Murder Case; Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey; Sinclair Lewis, Elmer Gantry.
Poetry
Countee Cullen, The Ballad of the Brown Girl: An Old Ballad Retold, Caroling Dusk, and Copper Sun; Langston Hughes, Fine Clothes to the Jew; Don Marquis, Archy and Mehitabel; E. A Robinson, Tristram.
Popular Songs
Jules Bledsoe, "Ol' Man River"; Helen Morgan, "Bill"; and "Can't Help Lovin Dat Man"; Norma Terris, Howard Marsh, Charles Winninger & Edna May Oliver, "Why Do I Love You?"; Fred Astaire," 'S Wonderful"; Fain & Dunn, "Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella"; Belle Baker, "Blue Skies"; William Gaxton & Constance Carpenter, "My Heart Stood Still" and "Thou Swell"; John Price Jones & Mary Lawler, "The Best Things in Life are Free"; Frank Fay, "Me and My Shadow"; Gene Austin, "My Blue Heaven"; Ruth Etting, "It AH Depends on You"; Vernon Dalhart, "Lindbergh, Eagle of the U.S.A."
  • Roy Harris composes Concerto for Piano, Clarinet, and String Quartet.
  • Roger Sessions composes Symphony in E Minor.
  • Aaron Copland composes Concerto for Piano and Orchestra.
  • Edward Hopper paints Manhattan Bridge.
  • Georgia O'Keeffe paints Radiator Building.
  • Charles Demuth paints My Egypt.
  • Mahonri Young sculpts Right to the Jaw.
26 Jan.
Saturday's Children by Maxwell Anderson opens.
31 Jan.
The Road to Rome by Robert E. Sherwood opens; it stars Jane Cowl.
25 Apr.
Hit the Deck opens with songs by Vincent Youmans and Lee Robin.
6 Sept.
Good News opens with songs by Ray Henderson, B. G. DeSylva, and Lew Brown.
8 Sept.
Bix Beiderbecke records "In a Mist."
3 Nov.
A Connecticut Yankee opens with songs by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart.
22 Nov.
Funny Face opens with songs by George and Ira Gershwin; it stars Fred and Adele Astaire.
4 Dec.
Duke Ellington's orchestra begins a long engagement at the Cotton Club in Harlem.
27 Dec.
Show Boat opens with songs by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II; it stars Helen Morgan, Charles Winninger, and Edna May Oliver.
27 Dec.
Paris Bound by Philip Barry opens.

1928

Movies
The Wedding March, starring Erich Von Stroheim and ZaSu Pitts, directed by Von Stroheim; Lilac Time, starring Colleen Moore and Gary Cooper; The Circus, starring Charlie Chaplin; The Singing Fool, starring Al Jolson; Our Dancing Daughters, starring Joan Crawford.
Fiction
Djuna Barnes, Ryder; Upton Sinclair, Boston; Glenway Wescott, Goodbye, Wisconsin; Edith Wharton, The Children; Earl Derr Biggers, Behind That Curtain; Viña Delmar, Bad Girl.
Poetry
Stephen Vincent Benét, John Brown's Body; Robert Frost, West-Running Brook; Robinson Jeffers, Cawder; Ezra Pound, A Draft of Cantos XVII to XXVII; Allen Tate, Mr. Pope.
Popular Songs
Helen Kane, "I Wanna Be Loved By You"; Bix Beiderbecke with Paul Whiteman, "Thou Swell"; Gene Austin, "Ramona"; Evelyn Herbert, "Lover, Come Back to Me"; Ona Munson & Jack Whiting, "You're the Cream in My Coffee"; Ben Bernie, Peggy Chamberlin & June O'Dea, "Crazy Rhythm"; Ruth Etting, "Love Me or Leave Me"; Eddie Cantor, "Makin Whoopee"; Rudy Vallee, "Sweet Lorraine"; Ruth Etting, "111 Get By"; Jimmie Rodgers, "Blue Yodel."
  • Virgil Thomson composes Four Saints in Three Acts; the libretto is by Gertrude Stein.
  • John Alden Carpenter composes String Quartet.
  • Arturo Toscanini becomes conductor of the New York Philharmonic.
  • Walter Piston composes Symphonic Piece.
  • Charles Demuth paints / Saw the Figure 5 in Gold.
  • Charles Sheeler paints River Rouge Industrial Plant
  • John Steuart Curry paints Baptism in Kansas.
  • John Sloan paints Sixth Avenue Elevated at Third Street.
  • Le Sacre du Printemps is produced featuring Martha Graham.
  • The Oxford English Dictionary is published.
  • "Dance Derby of the Century" is closed after three weeks.
  • The Doris Humphrey-Charles Weidman dance company is formed in New York.
  • Louis Hart conducts the dance composition classes at the Neighborhood Playhouse, New York.
9 Jan.
Eugene O'Neill's Marco Millions opens.
10 Jan.
Rosalie opens with songs by George and Ira Gershwin, P. G. Wodehouse, and Sigmund Romberg; it stars Marilyn Miller, Frank Morgan, and Jack Donahue.
30 Jan.
Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude opens.
9 May
Blackbirds of 1928 opens with songs by Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields; the all-black cast stars Bill Robinson and Adelaide Hall.
14 Aug.
The Front Page by Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht opens; the newspaper melodrama stars Lee Tracy and Osgood Perkins.
19 Sept.
New Moon opens with songs by Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein II.
23 Oct.
Animal Crackers opens with songs by Harry Ruby and Bert Kalamar; it stars the Marx Brothers.
26 Nov.
Holiday by Philip Barry opens; it stars Hope Williams.
4 Dec.
Whoopee with songs by Walter Donaldson and Gus Kahn opens; it stars Eddie Cantor and Ruth Etting.
13 Dec.
George Gershwin's An American in Paris premieres at Carnegie Hall, New York.

1929

Movies
The Taming of the Shrew, starring Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks; The Love Parade, starring Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier, directed by Ernst Lubitsch; Hallelujah, directed by King Vidor; The Broadway Melody, starring Charles Bang and Bessie Love; Steamboat Willie, produced by Walt Disney and starring Mickey Mouse; In Old Arizona, starring Warner Baxter; Coquette, starring Mary Pickford.
Fiction
Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms; Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel; William Faulkner, Sartoris and The Sound and the Fury; Sinclair Lewis, Dodsworth; Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee (Ellery Queen), The Roman Hat Mystery; Ellen Glasgow, They Stooped to Folly; Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest; Theodore Dreiser, A Galley of Women; Ring W. Lardner, Round Up; Claude McKay, Banjo; John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold; Edith Wharton, Hudson River Bracketed; Chic Sale, The Specialist; Oliver LaFarge, Laughing Boy; Lloyd C. Douglas, The Magnificent Obsession; S. S. Van Dine, The Bishop Murder Case.
Poetry
Robinson Jeffers, Dear Judas; Conrad Aiken, Selected Poems; Louise Bogan, Dark Summer; Countee Cullen, The Black Christ; E. A. Robinson, Cavender's House.
Popular Songs
Nick Lucas, "Tiptoe Through the Tulips With Me"; Cliff Edwards, The Rounders & The Brox Sisters, "Singin' in the Rain"; Ethel Waters, "Am I Blue?"; Rudy Vallee, "I'm Just a Vagabond Lover"; Lillian Taiz & John Hundley, "With a Song in My Heart"; Louis Armstrong, "Ain't Misbehavin' "; William Gaxton & Genevieve Tobin, "You Do Something to Me"; Ruth Etting, "Button Up Your Overcoat"; Libby Holman, "Moanin' Low"; Helen Morgan, "Why Was I Born?"; Al Jolson, "Liza"; Charles King, "Broadway Melody."
  • Samuel Barber composes Serenade for String Quartet.
  • Walter Piston composes Viola Concerto.
  • Roy Harris composes American Portraits.
  • Edward Hopper paints The Lighthouse at Two Lights.
  • Charles Shuler paints Upper Deck.
  • Thomas Hart Benton paints Georgia Cotton Pickers.
  • Arthur G. Dove paints Foghorns.
  • Alexander Calder sculpts Circus.
  • Saul Baizerman sculpts Hod Cartier.
  • Isamu Noguchi sculpts Martha Graham.
  • Fats Waller composes "Honeysuckle Rose," "Ain't Misbehavin'," and "Black and Blue."
10 Jan.
Elmer Rice's Street Scene opens.
11 Feb.
Eugene O'Neill's Dynamo opens.
2 July
Showgirl opens with songs by George and Ira Gershwin; it stars Ruby Keeler and Jimmy Durante.
27 Nov.
Fifty Million Frenchmen opens with songs by Cole Porter.