October 2024 Music: Melanie MacLaren– Lucy Isabel – Abbie Thomas– Disappearing Act– Sicilian Music

 

 

 

 

October was a really great month for music, so much so I can’t get it all into one column. Let’s start with my Artist of the Month: Melanie MacLaren (above).

 

Melanie MacLaren might be the long-awaited Gen Z Folk Queen-To-Be. Her Bloodlust EP oozes “emergent talent.”  The eponymous title track has infectious melody hooks, bouncy internal rhymes, impeccable pacing, a voice that cuts through the instrumental mix, and something to say lyrically. Remember “Laika,” the little dog Russia sent to space to the sorrow and fury of millions around the world? Decades later, MacLaren adds her tears and outrage. Her finger-picked, gentle song brings the little pooch back to life in our hearts. “Get it Back” takes up the topic of things that slip away in different ways–moments glanced and lost from a speeding train window, death, grief …. The theme might be dark, but similar to “Laika,” there’s grace in memory. If you wonder if she can sound this good live, check out “Henry Hudson” (which isn’t on this EP). It’s about the man, the river, MacLaren’s family, changes in her New York neighborhood, and her innermost self. Who can’t relate to her linking refrain: Time, time, time/I’ll stay out of your way/If you stay out of mine. Kudos for having the guts to admit her shame of once judging of her grandfather’s trailer park: Thought I was too good for it, but I wasn’t. I am sincere when I say this song made me weep. MacLaren draws comparisons to Gillian Welch, but as much as I hate to saddle anyone with such a high-expectations comparison, how about Joni Mitchell in her wide-eyed youth? I don’t mean it in any copycat way, but, yeah, Melanie McLaren is that good. It would not be hyperbolic to call her voice ethereal. 

 

 

 

Lucy Isabel scores with All the Light. Note the spelling of her name. Although Jared Anderson, the producer of her new LP, has worked with Jason Isbell, Lucy just happens to have a similar-sounding surname. She’s a New Jersey gal now living in Nashville. She works well with bands, but All the Light highlights her inner folk persona. “A Better Life” is typical of the honest, vulnerable, and hopeful songs on the album. It opens with a lovely arpeggio that slides into to a sweet melody that frames a song about a choice: to let go or settle down. “Blind Ambition” speaks truth to dreams, namely the realization embedded in the old adage that the older we get, the less we know–because life and relationships are more complex than we ever imagined. “Miles From Home” shows off some of the album’s polished production; call it bluegrass-inflected folk in a pop wrapper. Nonetheless, a stripped down song like “A Hero’s Welcome” is even more affecting in communicating love’s promises and vicissitudes.

 

 

 

 

If you want to switch gears, try Abbie Thomas and The Crazy Hearts and Not Gonna Lie. Thomas is a combination of blue-eyed soul, retro country, and big-voice jazz. The title track showcases said big voice in a soulful plea to “hold on” when things seem “impossible.” But she takes no crap. On “Bitch Make the Coffee” she stands up for female workers expected to endure abuse to keep their jobs. Thick bass lines, electric guitar, and jazzy keys set an ominous mood. “Wild & Free” is a nostalgic no-apologies song about growing up and making ends meet, though by implication it could be any family, anywhere, anytime. It has a jazzy feel, though the key structure breaks a few rules. It and each song on the record puts Thomas upfront and lets her riff with the band. She is an indie artist. I suspect that won’t last much longer, but it’s open for discussion how a label will, well, label her.

 

 The Disappearing Act is a band-not-band of three longtime friends from Texas. Dallas-based Salim Nourallah is perhaps the best known, but Bob Blumenfeld is also a fine songwriter, and John Dufilho has a knack for bringing everything together. For lack of a better term, the three are a cross between folk and 60s bands in their quieter moments. Mainly you get the sound of synergy. Got that? Maybe it’s best to listen. “Why is Everyone So Damn Happy?” is an ironic and upbeat support of being glum: Why is everyone so damn up/Why won’t everybody just shut up…. but I know this will blow away. You might imagine some blood-curdling thrills in a song named “Gun Barrel City,” but it’s actually as languidly-paced as a Jim Jarmusch film and just as deeply sardonic. Put a happier melody to this and you’ve got a carefree rejoinder in “Santorini,” and if you’ve ever been there you know exactly what they mean. If you like their vibe, also try “People in the Movies” or “I Feel Like I’m Howard Hughes,” the first evocative of a retro creepy film score and the second that could be from an offbeat early ‘60s TV program.

 

 

 

One reviewer has called Rachel McIntrye Smith the “Loretta Lynn for the TikTok Generation.” Maybe, though her old-style country vibe seems more like a natural inclination than an attempt to channel. I guess her slight twang and a song like “Stoke the Coals” invites such a Lynn comparison. As we hear on “Hold the Ladder,” though she’s more of a songbird than a hard hitter. This also comes through in “Grow Up Slow,” which walks a fine line between saccharine imagery and seizing her own identity. Unlike a lot of Southern wannabes, Smith actually hails from Tennessee, which stamps her EP Honeysuckle Friend with homegrown authenticity.

 

 

Finally, something that falls into the categories of folk music for scholars and specialized taste, there is Italy-Sicily, two dozen tracks (save one) collected by ethnomusicologist Sergio Bonanzinga between 1984-2004. A few things for the curious. Sicily, the “ball” kicked by the boot of Italy, has long been a crossroads. Although distinctive styles emerged in the 16^th century, Sicilian music shows many influences: mainland Italian, Greek, Arab, Byzantine…. It also features a lot of polyphony which, in simple terms, means individual melodies woven together to harmonize. Here’s your link for the entire album, from drumming to dances to village songs. You might find it useful to use your slider to see what grabs you. If you’re moved to buy a track or so, go to the Website for the French label Ocora and type in Bonanzinga as your finding aid.

 

 

Rob Weir

 

 

 

American Fiction is a Serious Comedy

 

 

 

American Fiction (2023)

Directed by Cord Jefferson

Orion, 117 minutes, R (language, sexual references, drug use, some violence)

★★★★ ½

 

American Fiction made money, but its box office was softer than it should have been. It won numerous awards at film festivals and was nominated for five Oscars, winning one (director Cord Jefferson for best adapted screenplay). Label it a black comedy in the traditional sense–humor derived from serious matters–but it is also a “black” film that delves into how stereotypes persist in American culture. It’s also a book within a book within two films. See it to understand to unravel that!

 

It is based on Percival Everett’s 2001 novel Erasure.  In all likelihood Everett poured himself into protagonist Dr. Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright). The Ellisons defy conventional views of black families. Monk is a novelist/literature professor in Los Angeles, his sister Lisa (Tracee Ellis Ross) is a Massachusetts physician, and younger brother Cliff (Sterling K. Brown) a plastic surgeon in Arizona. That’s three advanced degrees from an upper-middle-class black family whose aging mother Agnes (Leslie Uggams) still lives in the family home in Brookline, as well as a beachfront home in Scituate. If you’re keeping score this is lily-white Massachusetts; Brookline is just 0.12 percent black, Scituate 0.08 percent. The family must confront the fact that Agnes is suffering from Alzheimer’s. They plan to assemble at the beach to discuss future options.

 

The Ellisons are a rich-in-property-money-stretched and parallel the woes of some British gentry. The old properties need work, Lisa is divorced, Cliff has bills and is grappling with coming out as gay, and Monk’s books aren’t selling. That’s because Monk is grounded in classics and refuses to write anything that demeans African Americans. His agent Arthur (John Ortiz) delivers the bad news that his new novel has been rejected by major publishers. Imagine Monk’s shock when Sintara Golden (Issa Rae) scores bigtime with We Lives in Da’ Ghetto. His frustration-based response is to churn out My Pafology under the pseudonym Stagg R. Leigh. (Look up the legend of Stagolee if you don’t know it.) Monk’s intent is to be so trashy and outrageous that the public will see how African Americans are lampooned. Arthur reluctantly sends it out and to Monk’s horror, the big publishers love it and up the ante for an advance. The more outrageous Monk/Stagg gets–including changing the title to Fuck–the more the media salivates. Monk and Arthur must improvise why they can’t meet Stagg, but there’s even a movie producer (Adam Brody) ready to film it. Monk stands to make major coin but the price is his dignity.

 

Fuck sells so well that it’s up for a major book award. Poor Monk finds himself on a five-person committee–another member is Sintara–to sift between the ten contenders. He is relieved that Sintara hates the book, but their bonding is short-lived when he politely asks how her book is any different from the despicable Fuck. Nothing goes according to plan, including the ways in which Monk’s natural diffidence and introversion complicates an on/off new romance with Coraline (Erika Alexander), a lawyer renting a house in Scituate across the street from the Ellisons.

 

You name the trope and American Fiction toys with it: the cancel culture, whites crawling over each to “honor” black people and define their “authentic” experiences, the vulgarity of pop culture, occupations, flamboyant gayness, how a “black” film score should sound, the romantic comedy genre, dress, speech, and manners patterns….  All of this provides perfect comic setups, but is it too much of a good thing?

 

Jeffrey Wright is (as always) magnificent as Monk, a cold fish who’d like to swim in warm water but doesn’t know how. Alexander does a great job of treading the line between an independent woman and a coquette, Uggams convincingly blinks in and out of reality, and though she’s not on screen long, Ross is an acerbic delight. Although I worry it was too much, Brown is true to the adage that if you decide to go over the top, go way over.

 

Some audiences were disappointed by the film’s resolution and it’s an open question whether Jefferson (and Percival) inadvertently reify some of the negative stereotypes they hope to obliterate? I’m still mulling this, but I suggest that you go with any inconsistencies you find. American Fiction is often amusing, but it’s also a quiet think-about-it powerhouse.

 

Rob Weir

 

 

 

Eruption a White-Knuckle Thrill

 

 

Eruption (2024)

By Michael Crichton and James Patterson

Little, Brown, and Company, 432 pages

★★★★ ½ 

 

Sometimes you have to forget about “literature” and evaluate a book for how well it does what the author intended. If you like heart-pounding thrillers that you rip through like a pair of ripped jeans, few have ever matched the late Michael Crichton (The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park). He died in 2008, but his widow found notes and a plot treatment for another novel (working title The Black Zone). She contacted mystery/thriller author James Patterson who went through Crichton’s files; the result is Eruption.

 

That’s Eruption as in volcanoes. It takes place in 2025–yes, next year­–on the Big Island of Hawaii. It is home to Mauna Loa, the world’s largest active volcano, whose last major event was in 1984. It and Mauna Kei, which hasn’t blown its stack in 4,000 years are the centerpieces of Eruption and, yes, there will be considerable collateral damage.

 

Before the lava flows, the authors take us back in time a bit. In 1975 a secret government plan known as Project Vulcan looked into the possibility of diverting volcano flows that imperil civilians via strategic bombing. We jump ahead to 2016 when Rachel Sherrill is leading school tours at the Hilo Botanical Garden when a student notices blackened trees gone to ash. The park is immediately closed, but several days later she is dismissed and the park looks as if nothing happened.

 

Cut to April 2025. Thirty-six-year-old geologist Dr. James MacGregor (“Mac”) of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) is interrupted from his part-time gig of coaching surfing. He is flown to Honolulu by the U.S. Army to try to make sense of a partially illegible note and drawing scribbled by a retired general in a semi-vegetative state. In a debriefing, Col. James Briggs tells Mac of an ice tube in which radioactive herbicide cannisters were encased in glass and stored in 1978. Another Agent Orange-like weapon? Far more ominous.

 

Remember how quickly COVID spread from when you first heard of it to when people all over the globe were dying of it? This stuff is worse–so bad that if it gets out it would destroy all life on the planet in a matter of days. The bad news keeps on coming. Mac knows that a major eruption is imminent, but Briggs and his commander Gen. Mark Rivers deliver the news that if it compromises the ice tube, it’s goodbye yellow-brick road!  Mac and his HVO team are charged with making sure that doesn’t happen. In other words, this is a beat-the-clock thriller, but with various twists. It’s not exactly as if a general can bark out an order and volcanoes will say, “Yes, Sir!” Plus, Mac knows that Project Vulcan was abandoned because it flopped.

 

Like all good thrillers, personal issues and external obstacles get in the way. The stoic Mac is about to be divorced, his team member Jenny Kimura is attracted to him, and he has a team filled with smart young people–but they are young people. Jake Rogers, a dare devil pilot, is furious that flights have been grounded and ignores the flyover ban, no one is supposed to alarm the public but the New York Times sends reporters to investigate  rumors, and Oliver and Leah Cutler, two volcano-chasing TV celebrities in the vein of Crocodile Dundee demand access to the site. They are backed by tech billionaire J. P. Brett–think Elon Musk–who throws his weight around under the guise of “saving” the island.

 

Can Mac, General Rivers, and Houston demolitions expert Rebecca Cruz prevent Armageddon? Well… you’re reading this aren’t you? It is, however, to the credit of Crichton and Patterson that you will nonetheless grip the novel with white knuckles as you flip the pages. Eruption also manages to sneak in important themes–native peoples versus haloes (non-Hawaiians), folk beliefs and science, secrecy vis-à-vis the public’s right to know, and perhaps a backdoor slam at the madness of the Cold War.

 

Eruption ends rather abruptly, either because Crichton didn’t tip his hand at his ending or because Patterson wrote himself into a corner. It’s also too praiseworthy of the Army who, after all, were the reason for the problem. Yet those of a certain age might relive emotions from the Cuban Missile Crisis. Besides, it’s hard for me to slam a book whose 432 pages I read in two sittings!

 

Rob Weir

Be Mine is Sad, Poignant, and Funny

 

 

Be Mine (2023)

By Richard Ford

Ecco/HarperCollins, 342 pages.

★★★★★

 

Many literary critics (and New Yorker readers) cite John Updike’s Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom tetralogy as recent history’s finest. I admired the “Rabbit” books, but I might give the nod to the four Frank Bascombe novels penned by Richard Ford.  

 

His first three Frank Bascombe novels–The Sportswriter, Independence Day, and The Lay of the Land–revolved around the fictional town of Haddam, New Jersey. Some–especially women–find Ford (and Updike) too phallocentric. Be Mine, Ford’s fourth take on Bascombe, contains locker-room talk and male fantasies, but with a very different focus. Frank is in his 70s and knows that his clock is ticking and that his past hypermasculine ways have betrayed him. He’s twice divorced, disinterested in the real estate game, and is caring for his 47-year-old son Paul, who has been stricken with rapidly advancing ALS (“Lou Gehring’s Disease”).

 

Many of you are probably thinking, “Great! A cheery book about a grumpy old chauvinist and his son who is dying just about the worst way a human being can do so. No thank you!” That would be your loss. Be Mine is poignant and deals with big themes such as guilt, parent-child conflict, when to pivot, how to cope, and (perhaps) a last hurrah. Yet, it is also both a wise and funny book. Frank has been a heel at times, but he doesn’t hesitate to turn down an offer from former partner Mike Mahoney in order to be Paul’s nurse. “Mike” is a sketch in his own right, a Tibetan-born property mogul pumped full of Jersey wise-guy attitude.

 

Frank is done with all that and pulls some strings via an old flame, Dr. Catherine Flaherty, to get Paul seen by the Mayo Clinic. He goes all in and moves to Rochester, Minnesota, home of the Mayo. Frank is impressed, but retains his sarcastic edge:  

 

One floor below us is the “subway,” a great, tubular shopping arcade where loved ones of the sick, dying and recovering can purchase pizzas, chili dogs and hoagies, while browsing for Mayo-themed tchotchkes and mediocre Norwegian art to take back to Hibbing. It would be completely plausible to reside inside Mayo, like Quasimodo in Notre-Dame, and never have to die…. [A]s much as it’s committed to the healing mysteries, Mayo is equally committed to people-moving by the multitudes, which produces an ether of kinetic, germ-free positivism ….

 

Paul is a chip off the paternal block, sarcastic, bitter, and drawn to the surreal,  macabre, or kitschy. He calls his father “Lawrence,” wordplay on Florence Nightingale, and is by turns enthusiastic and verbose, insulting or silent. He wears a Kansas City Chiefs get-up, listens to the over-the top Anthony Newley, grills his father about Ann, his mother and Frank’s first wife.

 

ALS is fatal, so what can Frank do for Paul? Well, of course one would buy a gas-hog , poorly heated Dodge camper van, and depart on a winter trip to see Mt. Rushmore! That’s after Frank spends the hours Paul is at Mayo contemplating Heidegger or visiting a massage parlor where he drops $200 per visit for the company of 34-year-old Betty Duong Tran.

 

That’s unsettling, but a subtheme of Be Mine is that a lot of Americans are seriously tacky. Paul loves the absurdity of the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota. Neither is  enamored by the Fawning Buffalo, a run-down Indian casino:

 

The glowing but uncrowded lobby opens out directly to a cavernous, murky, low-lit gaming pavilion, a sea of slots where only a handful of players… are goosing the machines, sipping free margaritas and smoking... Poker, roulette, bingo, and dice pits are far in the rear….  A gray haze drifts … into the lobby, around the sides of which is the “Naughty Spot Gift Boutique” with a red neon sign, and a few other un-patronized storefronts–a Condom and Tattoo shop, an exotic bakery, a Crafts Centre with a window of baskets and knock-off tribal trappings for sale.... [N]othing here is living up to the billboard hype. Possibly it never did. Tom Jones is singing strenuously over everything. “Woah… whoa… whoa… whoa… whoa… whoa.

 

All the while Frank battles his Log Cabin Republican daughter who insists Paul should be with her in Scottsdale. (Both find Clarissa obnoxious.) As you might expect, Mt. Rushmore doesn’t live up to its hype either. Or does it? Snark and tragedy aside, Be Mine is about letting go and what the living can learn from the dying. Does Frank find redemption? Far be it for me to tell. This is a smart book from which you can glean many conclusions.

 

Rob Weir

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gridiron Madness at UMass

 

 

I recently struck up a conversation with three visitors from 1200 miles away. They came to watch their alma mater, Missouri, tackle UMass in football. One worried it could be a “tough road game” for Mizzou: “an unfamiliar team in an unfamiliar stadium.” I laughingly replied, “If they win by less than 50 points they should fire the coach.”

 

Maybe Ryan Bamford, the captain of the RMS Titanic–sorry, UMass Athletic Director–thinks it a moral victory that losing by 45-3 beat my 50-point spread, though an unsubstantiated rumor holds that Missouri dressed the cheerleading squad for the fourth quarter. Are there any adults in the UMass administration with the courage to pull the plug on the brain-dead experiment? A chemistry professor with a success/failure rate of 24-112 would be denied tenure. In the 14 years since UMass moved “up” (?) from Division II it has burned through 5 coaches and has paid out enough termination money to blow up the Tower Library and build a rational facility.

 

I love UMass. It’s where I got my doctorate, made good friends, and taught. I even had UMass in my will. I’m feeling just fine right now, but if UMass can waste money and young lives on gridiron folly, there are hundreds of more worthy causes. CTE brain injury research for instance.

 

Who’s to blame for a program that allows young bodies to be savaged by bigger, faster, stronger, and more skilled opponents? Bamford gets some of the blame, with assists from coddling chancellors, male legislators who took too many blows to the head, and far-flung alums who haven’t been to Amherst since their graduation kegger. But I assign most of the blame to the Patriots who carelessly won a few Super Bowls. Prior to the Tom Brady era, New England football was an afterthought. On a warm cloudy fall day a few thousand might show up for games at UMass, Harvard, or Boston College. Elsewhere it was in the hundreds. (When it was warm and sunny, rational people went leaf-peeping.)

 

Against Missouri, UMass failed to fill McGuirk Stadium’s 17,000 seats. That bespeaks the difference between non-football and football cultures. If fewer than 17,000 showed up for a Michigan game, the AD and coach would be hanged, the president stripped naked and forced to run a gauntlet through Ann Arbor, the faculty reorganized, and the entire student body expelled. UMass is so far out of its league it couldn’t find it in a hall or mirrors. Yet next year, in still another misguided effort, UMass will join the Mid-American Conference (MAC). In the name of “fixing” the football program numerous well-established men’s and women’s teams will be forced to join the MAC, not the least of which are its nationally known basketball programs. Imagine the hordes (not!) parading into McGuirk or the Mullins Center to see UMass play natural rivals like Akron and Ball State. Watch as they take on Miami and Michigan; that is, Miami of Ohio and Eastern and Western Michigan. For what it’s worth, MAC member Northern Illinois beat Notre Dame this year, but if you dream that UMass will ever do so, kindly see one of the many fine therapists in the Pioneer Valley.  

 

Want to sell out McGuirk?  Dump football and do as the Romans did. Begin with a few bloody Ultimate Fight Club bouts, let the band march at halftime, and then bring on the main event: Christians versus gladiators, lions, and tigers. The crowd will go wild!

Jezebel Doesn't Weather Well

 

 

 

 

 

Jezebel (1938)

Directed by William Wyler

Warner Brothers, 104 minutes.

★

 

In 2009, Jezebel was added to the National Film Registry as a culturally significant film. A lot of cultural changes have happened since then and one wonders if the culture in question is that of the post-Confederacy Lost Cause. In its day, Bette Davis won a best actress Oscar for her role as Julie Marsden and Faye Bainter as best supporting actress as her aunt Belle Massey.

 

Aunt Belle has raised Julie, but not well; she's a spoiled, pig-headed belle of a different sort. Julie is also the film's Jezebel. In the Bible, an Old Testament Jezebel is the wife of King Ahab and convinces him to become a Baal worshipper. In Revelations, Jezebel is a sexual temptress. In the film, Julie is more like a cross between a tease and the little girl who cried wolf. She's engaged to the banker Preston Dillard (Henry Fonda) all the while keeping Buck Cantrell (George Brent ) dancing on the puppet string as a possible fallback. The year and setting is 1852 New Orleans. Locals worry about a possible new outbreak of “Yellow Jack;” that is, yellow fever.

 

Julie is so spoiled that she goes into a snit when Pres attends a bank meeting instead of joining her for her final gown fitting for the Olympus Ball. He tantrum leads to an ill-advised decision. Although high society protocol required that ladies dress in white, Julie impetuously decides to wear a red gown. Yes, socialites actually worried about such trivialities. She won't be talked out of out of wearing red by her aunt or anyone else around her. (The film is in black and white, so the red dress was actually bronze.)

 

When Julie enters the ballroom Pres is embarrassed and everyone else is so shocked that they shun her. Pres gallantly dances with her, but he is losing patience with Julie. What ensues is a good girl/bad girl dance that ultimately results in a slap that leads Pres to leave New Orleans. Julia is ultimately crushed and resolves to reform and marry Preston, although Buck's still sniffing around the old plantation. Belle warns Julie that she may have finally overdone things, but Julie insists that Preston will return to her. One year later she hears he's back in New Orleans (as is Yellow Jack). She can't wait for Pres to show up and see her in her proper white gown and fall madly in love with her. When he finally arrives, though, it's with Amy Dillard (Margaret Lindsay), his new wife.

 

Assuming you still care–and why would you–here' are some more things that will make you reach for the air sickness bag: a good old Southern duel, a happily enslaved house staff, some mighty cute ragged black kids serenading ‘Miz Julie, New Orleans citizens trying to chase away yellow fever by firing cannons and smudging the streets with smoke, and patients being quarantined at a leper colony. Can Julia atone for her stupidity and commit a selfless act?

 

None of the principal actors came from any closer to the Deep South then Nebraska. I suppose you could say that Bette Davis was really cute back in 1938 and did her best with the accent but overall, Jezebel has as little cultural capital as a ward of Confederate bills has economic value. Henry Fonda had only been in Hollywood for three years in 1938 and had trouble bending his flat Midwestern accent into something vaguely Louisianan. Poor George Brent was actually Irish and sounded like he practiced by reading William Faulkner passages in front of a mirror.

 

I'd gladly don a red ball gown and rush into a leper colony before consuming this piece of Southern deep-fried racist nonsense a second time.

 

Rob Weir

Samuel Slater Experience is Goes Down Easy History

 

 

 

The Samuel Slater Experience

31 Ray Street

Webster, Massachusetts

 

You’ve probably seen dozens of individuals tagged as “The Father of X” or “The Mother of Y.” Generally that’s as much hype as reality, but Samuel Slater (1768-1835) was indeed the “Father of the American Industrial Revolution.” Depending on your point of view, he was either a boy genius or a thief. In Britain, he’s “Slater the Traitor.” 

 

Arkwright waterframe

 

 

Young Slater might have been brilliant, but his low stature as an indentured servant in an English textile factory meant he could never be a mill owner or superintendent. In response, he memorized the designs for the Arkwright water frame and an automatic spinning machine that propelled Britain to the fore of European industrial production. In 1789, just a year after the U.S. Constitution was ratified, Slater risked imprisonment to slip out of England and sail to the United States. He went into partnership with Moses Brown (of Brown University fame) and after a few false starts, set up the first successful textile factory on American soil at Pawtucket Falls, Rhode Island. 

 

Slater’s model of small-scale factories employing children and families was dubbed the “Rhode Island System” and dominated textile production until it was surprised by the larger investment capital mills of the “Waltham System.” (The latter shifted to the giant mills in Massachusetts–Lowell, Lawrence, Holyoke–and New Hampshire cities such as Nashua and Manchester). But until 1814, American industrialization was centered in Blackstone River mill villages such as Slatersville, RI and Dudley, Oxford, and Hopedale, MA. Not coincidentally, Slater made a fortune.  

 

One of Slater’s most successful ventures was launched in Webster, MA hard by the Connecticut line. Early textile mills depended upon water and Webster sports a large lake the Nipmuc called Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg. It’s still officially called that, but you try saying it! Most just say Lake Webster. 

 

 

The Samuel Slater Experience (SSE) tells his story and the industrial history of Webster. It departs from other similarly-themed museums in that it’s more interactive. After an opening gallery that displays an Arkwright frame and a hand spinning machine, one follows a path to various stops where holographic figures appear. Early we see Slater in conversation with his master, Jedediah Strutt, who tells Sam to be happy with his lot. Another display takes us to a mock ship’s deck fronted by rolling waves. A seasick Slater walks to the front of the hold, the waves swell to wild storm pitch and (small) sprays of water “splash from the ceiling. 

 

Slater's Office

 

From there it’s a series of animations that tell of his rise to fortune and influence. As is generally the situation in museums dedicated to successful individuals one can get a bit tired of perseverance and glorification; those who have studied industrial history sometimes take umbrage with theme park-like hokeyness. Yet, it’s wise to remind yourself that a majority of Americans don’t have college educations and need a bit of Disneyesque flash to hold their attention. 

 

To the SSE’s credit, it does display an older Slater as more ruthless in his business decisions. One display of actors-in-role gives various take on life in Webster. These include several workers, a female Polish immigrant, a child laborer, residents of Webster, admirers, and a few Slater detractors. These, of course, are somewhat sanitized because, once again, the audience is not academia. You could say, with merit, that the SSE is melodramatic in places and historically inaccurate in others. For instance, many of the photos used to call attention to child labor are from Lewis Hine in the early 20^th century, not from Slater’s time on earth. (There were no American photographs until four years after Slater died.) 

 

 

 

On another level, one could make the case that such images are justified as they hold the essence of the industrial system that Slater unleashed and portend what developed in the city of Webster. This is grounded in some truth; places such as Webster and Lowell were atypical. Thomas Jefferson held the view that machines should remain forever in Europe. He lost that debate, but agrarian ideals reigned for most of the 19^th century and it wasn’t until 1920 that a census revealed more individuals making their living in something other than agriculture. 

 

 

The last part of the SSE is dedicated to the history of Webster. It celebrates the era of trolley cars, movies, thriving retail trade, and nightlife–most of it fueled by industrial dollars. If it is a romanticized version of the past, why not? Webster still has a nice lake, but it’s a toss-up if a postindustrial Webster is an improvement.

 

Rob Weir