2017 Malkin Lecture Series

MALKIN LECTURE SERIES FALL 2017

malkin lecture series

Part American palace, part industrial shed, Park Avenue Armory fills a critical void in the cultural ecology of New York City by enabling artists to create, students to explore, and audiences to experience unconventional work that could not otherwise be mounted in traditional performance halls and museums.

The Armory was completed in 1881, at the height of the Gilded Age. It contains the 55,000-square-foot Wade Thompson Drill Hall and the country’s most intact collection of American Aesthetic Movement interiors, representing the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany, Stanford White, and Herter Brothers, among others.

Launched in 2007, the Malkin Lecture Series presents scholars and experts on topics relating to the Park Avenue Armory and its pivotal role in the civic, cultural, and aesthetic evolution of New York City in the 19th and early 20th centuries. For our 10th anniversary year, we focus on American icons of the arts, politics, and sports who were personally connected with the 7th Regiment and who helped define New York and America in the 20th century.

Interior of the Veterans Room, Photo: James Ewing thompson arts center at park avenue armory 643 park avenue at 67th street

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malkin lecture series

Casey Stengel: Baseball’s Greatest Character

malkin lecture series

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28 doors open: 6:00pm program: 6:30pm

As the 2017 World Series draws near, join baseball expert Marty Appel as he discusses New York baseball and his new book on the legendary Hall of Famer Casey Stengel—the only man to wear the uniforms of the Brooklyn Dodgers, the New York Giants, the Yankees, and the Mets. For more than five decades, he was the quirky, hilarious, and beloved face of baseball in America.

As a legendary manager, he formed indelible, complicated relationships with Yogi Berra, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Billy Martin and he revolutionized the role of manager while winning a spectacular 10 pennants and 7 world championships. Jacob Ruppert, the owner of the Yankees in the early 20th century and builder of Yankee Stadium was a member of the 7th Regiment and the connections from this East Side Armory to the Bronx run deep. For this lecture, archival items related to baseball will be on display.

Marty Appel started his career in baseball at age 19 when he has hired by the Yankees to answer Mickey Mantle's fan mail back in 1968. He went on to become the youngest public relations director in baseball history. As the man responsible for Old Timers’ Day at Yankee Stadium, he worked closely with Stengel in the 1970s. Appel is considered one of the nation's leading historians on the Yankees, and has written 24 books including Pinstripe Empire: The New York Yankees from Before the Babe to After the Boss (Bloomsbury, 2014), considered the definitive history of the team. A lifelong New Yorker, he has won an Emmy Award for his production of Yankee baseball and is a regular commentator on sports news. His new book Casey Stengel: Baseball’s Greatest Character (2017) is the first major biography of Stengel in more than 30 years.

Casey Stengel at Yankee Stadium on October 13, 1948, Photo: Bettmann / Contributor 2

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malkin lecture series

Henry James: The Houses of the Fiction

malkin lecture series

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 5 doors open: 6:00pm program: 6:30pm

Henry James famously compared The Portrait of a Lady (1881) to an enormous, million-windowed house, a building that opened on to any number of possible scenes. But what about the actual houses that figured in his work—the places where he wrote or the ones he took as models in which he set his characters that so compellingly captured the Gilded Age? This lecture examines three different houses that figure in James’s novel: Hardwick, the country house in the south of England on which he based Gardencourt, in which the novel begins; the Florentine villa that served as the model for the house of the novel’s villain, Gilbert Osmond; and James’s own Lamb House, on the English coast, where he revised the novel in the early years of the 20th century.

Michael Gorra is the Mary Augusta Jordan Professor of English at Smith College, where he has taught since 1985, and the author of Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of An American Masterpiece (2012), a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography. Earlier books include The Bells in Their Silence: Travels through Germany (2004); After Empire: Scott, Naipaul, Rushdie (1997); and The English Novel at Mid-Century (1990). He has received a Guggenheim fellowship, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and a National Book Critics Circle award. Gorra’s essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Review of Books, the TLS, The Atlantic, and The New York Times Book Review, among others. His current work in progress is William Faulkner’s Civil War.

Henry James, by John Singer Sargent; courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery 4

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malkin lecture series

Eleanor Roosevelt: The War Years and After

malkin lecture series

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 15 doors open: 6:00pm program: 6:30pm

There is no woman more interconnected with the history of the 7th Regiment Armory than Eleanor Roosevelt, whose father was a prominent member during her childhood and whose uncle was a role model to the Gilded Age men of the National Guard. She hosted events at the Armory to raise money for unemployed women during the Great Depression, attended dance festivals in the drill hall, and donated funds for the Armory’s maintenance when money was tight. Professor Wiesen Cook’s extensive biography of Eleanor Roosevelt has been praised as the essential portrait of a woman who towers over the 20th century. The third and final volume (Viking, 2016) takes us through World War II, FDR’s death, the founding of the UN, and Eleanor Roosevelt’s death in 1962. It follows the arc of war and the evolution of a marriage, as the first lady realized the cost of maintaining her principles even as the country and her husband were not prepared to adopt them. These years—the war years—made Eleanor Roosevelt the woman she became: leader, visionary, guiding light.

Blanche Wiesen Cook is a distinguished professor of history at John Jay College and Graduate Center, City University of New York.

Eleanor Roosevelt Volume I was a winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and both volumes (I and II) were New York Times bestsellers.

Her other publications include The Declassified Eisenhower and Crystal Eastman on Women and Revolution. She was a featured speaker in the Ken Burns documentary The Roosevelts.

Eleanor Roosevelt with Colonel Ralph Tobin and Secretary of War George H. Dern in the Wade Thompson Drill Hall on May 22, 1933, Photo: 7th Regiment Archives, NYSMM 6

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malkin lecture series

Edith Wharton and France at War: The Great Generalissima

malkin lecture series

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28 doors open: 6:00pm program: 6:30pm

One hundred years ago this fall, the men of the 7th Regiment left New York to train for combat before leaving for the trenches of France. Included in their ranks were two members of the Rhinelander family, cousins to Edith Wharton, along with Van Rensaellers, Livingstons, and Roosevelts — a who’s who of young men of New York’s Gilded Age. Wharton thought it the duty of young men to serve in the war and celebrated their sacrifices in her writings. Hermione Lee, Wharton’s most noted biographer, will describe the great American novelist's feelings for France, the amazing story of her activities on behalf of her adopted country during the First World War, and her complex relationship with America at the time.

Hermione Lee is the President of Wolfson College, Oxford, Director of the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing at Wolfson College, and a biographer, critic, and Professor of Literature at the University of Oxford. Her work includes biographies of Virginia Woolf (1996), Edith Wharton (2006), and Penelope Fitzgerald (2013, winner of the 2014 James Tait Black Prize for Biography, and one of The New York Times 10 best books of 2014). She is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Society of Literature, and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

She has reviewed regularly for The Guardian and for The New York Review of Books.

She was Chair of the Judges for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2006.

Edith Wharton surrounded by soldiers, Courtesy of Robert M. Pennoyer, from As It Was: A Memoir on Prospecta Press 8

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malkin lecture series

malkin lecture series

J OIN T HE A R M ORY MEMBERSHIP

ARMORY AVANT-GARDE $350 OR $600

Become a member of Park Avenue Armory and support the presentation of epic, unconventional arts and educational programming in the Armory’s landmarked building.

Members have access to the best seats for Armory productions during exclusive pre-sales, and are invited to experience the Armory and its artists through preview parties, open rehearsals, members-only viewing hours, building tours, and special events.

The Avant-Garde is a forward-thinking group of Park Avenue Armory supporters in their 20s to 30s that offers a deeper, more intimate connection to the unique and creative concepts behind the Armory’s mission. Members receive exclusive benefits throughout the year, including priority ticketing, special receptions, viewings, talks, and VIP events designed specifically for the Avant-Garde.

FRIEND $100 ($70 IS TAX-DEDUCTIBLE)

CHAIRMAN’S CIRCLE STARTING AT $2,500

» Invitation to the opening night preview for visual art installations » Free admission for you and a guest to visual art installations » Discounts at local restaurants and hotels » 10% discount on merchandise sales » Only at the Armory Member Newsletter » Discount on Armory Guided Tours » Member Viewing Hours during visual art installations » Members only pre-sale access for performance tickets and 20% discount on Members Subscription

SUPPORTER $250 ($200 IS TAX-DEDUCTIBLE) All benefits of the Friend membership plus: » Fees waived on ticket exchanges* » Two free tickets to guided tours** » Discount on tickets to the Malkin Lecture Series, Artist Talks, and Public Programs*

Members of this exclusive group are offered unique and intimate opportunities to experience the Armory, including invitations to private tours and VIP receptions with world-class artists, access to premium seats and the Armory’s concierge ticket service.

EDUCATION COMMITTEE STARTING AT $5,000 The Armory’s arts education program reaches thousands of public school students each year, immersing them in the creative process of exceptional visual and performing artists and teaching them to explore their own creative instincts. Education Committee members are invited to special events, meetings, and workshops that allow them to witness the students’ progress and contribute to the growth of the program.

For more information on membership, go to armoryonpark.org/join, email members@armoryonpark.org, or call (212) 616-3958. *For same production; subject to availability. **Certain restrictions apply.

ASSOCIATE $500 ($370 IS TAX-DEDUCTIBLE) All benefits of the Supporter membership plus: » Members’ concierge ticket service » Free admission for two additional guests (a party of four) to visual art installations » Access to VIP lounge in one of the Armory’s historic rooms during performance intermissions » Two complimentary passes to an art fair**

BENEFACTOR $1,000 ($780 IS TAX-DEDUCTIBLE) All benefits of the Associate membership plus: » Recognition in printed programs » No wait, no line ticket pick up at the patron desk » Handling fees waived for ticket purchases* » Invitation for you and a guest to a private Chairman’s Circle event » Two complimentary tickets to select programs in our historic period rooms* 10

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thompson arts center at park avenue armory 643 park avenue at 67th street

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malkin lecture series

LECTURES AT-A-GLANCE

TICKETS

Casey Stengel: Baseball’s Greatest Character

$15 general admission $12 seniors & students with valid id $10 supporters at the $250 level and above

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28

a per-ticket service fee applies to all phone and web sales. all tickets will incur a facility fee of $2.00 per ticket which is used to maintain and preserve park avenue armory.

Henry James: The Houses of the Fiction THURSDAY, OCTOBER 5

Eleanor Roosevelt: The War Years and After

HOW TO ORDER

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 15

online: armoryonpark.org

Edith Wharton and France at War: The Great Generalissima

phone: (212) 933-5812

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28 all malkin lectures take place in the armory’s historic rooms. doors open at 6:00pm and programs begin at 6:30pm.

fax: (212) 249-5505 mail: fill out the order form and mail to: thompson arts center at park avenue armory 643 park avenue new york, ny 10065 please note that lectures tend to sell out quickly; we recommend that you order by phone or online to place your order quickly. any payments received by mail for sold-old lectures will be returned.

malkin lecture series

Lecture

Qty.

Price

Total

Casey Stengel: Baseball’s Greatest Character Thursday, September 28 Henry James: The Houses of the Fiction Thursday, October 5 Eleanor Roosevelt: The War Years and After Wednesday, November 15 Edith Wharton and France at War: The Great Generalissima Tuesday, November 28 Fees Total: Total number of tickets from above:

x$4 ($2 facility fee plus $2 handling fee)

Contribution (select level from pages 10-11) Grand Total

PAYMENT INFORMATION Check enclosed payable to Park Avenue Armory Please charge my credit card

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Cover Photo: James Ewing

643 Park Avenue New York, NY 10065

NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION U.S. POSTAGE PAID STATEN ISLAND, NY 10314 PERMIT NO.169