23 from ’23: Celebrating the Growth of the Public Domain with Digital Exhibits & Silent Film Screenings

A large number of movies, books, songs, and paintings from 1923 entered the public domain on Tuesday  January 1, 2019. For more information as to why plus a list of resources listen to our recent podcast episode about the public domain, or look out for our other blog post by Copyright Law Librarian Stephen Wolfson later this month.

To celebrate, the law library has a rotating display of digital slides titled “23 from ’23” featuring lists of visual, musical and written works from 1923 that are now in the public domain. In addition the law library’s group study tables have silent films from 1923 showing throughout the month on the two screens in that area. Stop by anytime this month to watch!

1923 was a rich and interesting time in both American and international culture. Overarching themes of all works released in that year are industry, technological innovation, and cross-cultural influence. American films featured international faces and plots (The Silent Command, Salomé, Frozen Hearts, A Room With A View). Written works discussed the recent world war (A Son at the Front, Thomas the Imposter, The World Crisis, Antic Hay), and films, visual works of art and written works all depict advancements in transportation and communication (The Lost Lady, The Prospects of Industrial Civilization, The Titanic, Pacific 231, The Wizardry of Wireless). In music and art compositions from this year there is a wide range of styles mixing and emerging with several works decidedly returning to classic structure and subject matter (The Art Spirit, Mansford Roof, Octet for Wind Instruments) while others intentionally look to the future for themes, inspiration and  techniques, even inventing new genres (Dance Suite, I Just Want a Daddy I Can Call My Own, The Discovered Statue, Jacob’s Room, Return to Reason).

Whether you are a creator yourself looking to pull source materials from the items entering the public domain, or you simply want to read a free copy of a novel published that year, check out our following list of “23 from ’23”::

1. Return to Reason (Le Retour à la Raison): This short film was directed by American artist Man Ray in 1923. It consists of animated textures, Rayographs (which was a type o photogram) and the torso of Kiki of Montparnasse (Alice Prin, a.k.a. Man Ray’s lover, model and celebrated character in Paris bohemian circles). The movie is one of the first Dadaist films.
2. The Wizardry of Wireless: This 22 minute partly animated film is held in the Library of Congress collection. It is a technical film illustrating how radio works, tracing the history of communications, from smoke signals to the telephone and explaining the principles of radio transmission. The film was sponsored by General Electric featuring an NY plant. 1923 was incidentally the same year that the first personal radio was put on the market, with technical drawings now in the public domain as well.
3. Salomé: Directed by Charles Bryant and starring Alla Nazimova, this film is an adaptation of the Oscar Wilde play of the same name. Salomé is often called one of the first art films to be made in the U.S. It has highly stylized costumes, exaggerated acting, minimal sets, and absence of most props allowing for more focus on atmosphere.
4. The Silent Command: This American silent drama film directed by J. Gordon Edwards features Bela Lugosi in his first U.S. film role. Lugosi plays a foreign saboteur who plots to destroy the Panama Canal. Produced in cooperation with the Navy it was intended as a propaganda film to gain support for a larger navy.
5. Haldane of the Secret Service: This film was both directed by and starring Harry Houdini. In the film main character Heath Haldane tracks down a vicious gang of counterfeiters, narrowly missing death several times. He must rescue Adele Ormsby, whom he loves despite her pending marriage.
6. Frozen Hearts: This American silent comedy film starred Stan Laurel. One of a number of films he made before teaming up with Oliver Hardy. It is based in Russia at the end of the 19th century. Olaf (Stan Laurel) leaves his fiancée and joins the army. Characterized as a literary adaption, it is instead a lark that pokes fun at certain novels of the period.
7. Three Ages: This film is about the rituals of courtship, romantic rivalry and love. A Man (Buster Keaton) vies with a Villain (Wallace Beery) for the Girl (Margaret Leahy) in the Stone Age, Ancient Rome, and contemporary times. In the Stone Age a turtle used as a Ouija board, in Ancient Rome brawn is displayed in a chariot race, and in present day with cars.
8. Where the North Begins: An American silent drama film produced and distributed by Warner Bros. This was the third film for up-and-coming canine actor Rin Tin Tin. The male German Shepherd was an international star in motion pictures after being rescued from a World War I battlefield by an American soldier, Lee Duncan who trained Rin Tin Tin and obtained silent film work for the dog. The dog was an immediate box-office success and went on to appear in 27 Hollywood films.
9. A Son at the Front: Written by Edith Wharton in 1923, she draws upon her upper class New York “aristocracy” upbringing to develop realistic works of the Gilded Age. Wharton was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1921 for her novel The Age of Innocence. In addition to writing novels she was also a playwright and designer.
10. Thomas the Imposter: Written by Jean Cocteau and first published in 1923, this novel explores the horrors of World War I. Heralded as “a hymn to the cult of youth” the tale is of a boy too young to fight but who pretends he is older and of a noble ancestry to become a soldier. Cocteau was not only a writer but also a designer, artist and filmmaker known for his avant-garde work on films like the Beauty and the Beast (1946) and Orpheus (1949).
11. The World Crisis: Winston Churchill’s U.S. and British editions were originally published as six individual books from 1923 – 1931. They are his critical view of the first World War. His American biographer William Manchester wrote that: “His masterpiece is The World Crisis, published over a period of several years is a 3,261-page account of the Great War, beginning with its origins in 1911 and ending with its repercussions in the 1920s.”
12. Antic Hay: A comic novel by Aldous Huxley first published in 1923. The story takes place in London, and depicts the aimless or self-absorbed cultural elite in the sad and turbulent times following the end of World War I. The original manuscripts for the novel are part of the collection of the University of Houston Library.
13. The Lost Lady: American writer Willa Cather first published this novel in 1923 about a couple who live out West along the Transcontinental Railroad. Adapted to film in 1924 and again in 1934, the novel is also regarded as having been a big influence on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s main character in The Great Gatsby. Cather achieved recognition for prior novels including One of Ours (1922) which won her the Pulitzer prize the same year A Lost Lady was published.
14. The Prospects of Industrial Civilization: Considered the most ambitious of Bertrand Russell’s works on modern society, in it he argues that industrialism is a threat to human freedom, since it is fundamentally linked with nationalism. He proposes one government for the whole world as the ultimate solution.
15. The Titanic: Written by Elbert Hubbard before his death in 1915 onboard the Lusitania, this 1923 edition crafted by Hubbard’s own “Roycroft-Town” artisan press is the only known print of the book. The story primarily recounts the tale of Ida Straus (Rosalie Ida Straus) and her husband Isidor. These same historical figures were featured in the 1997 film Titanic.
16. Jacob’s Room: This was the third novel written by author Virginia Wolf, originally published in the UK in 1922, and in the US in 1923. She is considered one of the most important modernist 20th century authors and a pioneer of the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. In this work Jacob is described only through the different perceptions of other characters and the narrator as a collection of memories and sensations.
17. A Room With A View: Originally written in 1908 by English author E.M. Forster, the book was first published in the United States un 1923. Set in Italy and England, the story is both a romance and a critique of Edwardian era English society. An award-winning film adaptation appeared in 1985 and the novel is known as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
18. The Art Spirit: Written by American painter and teacher Robert Earle Henri and first published in 1923 it gathers the essential beliefs and theories of author who was a leading figure of the Ashcan School of American realism as well as an organizer of the “The Eight”, a loose group of artists who protested exhibition restrictions practiced by the National Academy of Design.
19. Mansford Roof: Painted in 1923 by Edward Hooper, it depicts a Victorian Mansion. Hooper was an American printmaker and realist painter. Though he is best known for his oil paintings he created equal amounts of watercolors and etchings. This particular painting was a success, winning a prize and being purchased by the Brooklyn Museum.
20. Octet for Wind Instruments: In 1923 Igor Stravinsky (famously known for The Rite of Spring) published this chamber-music piece for wind instruments. After the piece was published the composer authored an article titled Some Ideas about My Octuor in France in January 1924 asserting his formalist ideas on how to properly perform the work. This resulted in 1923 being known as the start of his neoclassicism style which would continue throughout the works for the rest of his career.
21. I Just Want a Daddy I Can Call My Own: Thomas Dorsey learned to write and arrange songs, publishing several in 1923. Born in Villa Ricca, Georgia he was known during his lifetime as “Georgia Tom” and began his career as a leading blues pianist. Later her studied music in Chicago. Known today as the “father of black of gospel music” he combined Christian praise with the rhythms of jazz and blues.
22. Dance Suite: A set of dances in five parts, this composition and others by Hungairan composer Béla Bartók include folk-like themes with orchestral interludes. Peasant music of all nationalities served as a model including European, Romanian, Slovak, and even Arabic to create a hybrid invented folk of international influence. Considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century for his analytical study of music, founding ethnomusicology.
23. Pacific 231: Composer Arthur Honegger in 1923 created possibly the most famous piece deriving esthetic from machines. The music itself describes the movements of a locomotive. It was largely influenced by Futurist artist and composer Luigi Russolo who had just published the manifesto “The Art of Noises” (1913), and crafted the earliest experimental instruments (Intonarumori 1910-30) teaching that the ear preferred industrial soundscapes.