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Post by courtneymarie on Dec 2, 2009 18:02:36 GMT -5
Hello, As some of you (my facebook friends) already know...I have chosen to write about Kate for the first part of my senior thesis in history. The tricky part is that this is a historiography paper or otherwise known as a "history of history" paper which means I have to discuss those other authors who have discussed Kate and what they had to say...I have read and researched many areas and have some great topics that I can debate and compare and contrast Kate is so interesting that I have so many ideas but, if anyone else can help me I am trying to list them all so I can organize my paper...which is due in 2 weeks ...any help or input would be greatly appreciated Thank you so very much...I thought that we could "pool" our Kate knowledge Court
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Post by CrazyForKate on Dec 2, 2009 19:41:44 GMT -5
Well, there's a lot of ground you can cover with Kate...what exactly are you planning to say? Are you focusing about KH as a role model, as an actress, as a person? All of the above?
There's a website with tons of old articles about KH. Can't remember what it is (I think it has some connection with the Tracy-Hepburn podcast), but it has an article about Garson Kanin from 1939 and one KHST from around the time of Adam's Rib that is particularly cute, among many others. There's also a transcript of the Phil Donahue interview. Someone have a link?
Also, besides the obvious books try to find Katharine Hepburn: Star As Feminist. Tough read (I never finished it), but worth a look as a 'non-biography' that still focuses on her. Many books that are unavailable locally might be found as e-books- usually cheaper and save on space, too!
Of course, some of your best sources will be the members here.
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Post by courtneymarie on Dec 2, 2009 22:18:16 GMT -5
I am focusing on her achievements in the political and social spheres...like the birth control movement etc... I have to discuss the other authors...whether good or bad... that have written about her...and compare and contrast what their point of views are and not necessarily the truth...that's why it is so hard...I want to interject my ideas in as well and that is not the proper way to write a paper like the one I have to Court
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Post by HollywoodHepcat on Dec 2, 2009 22:50:00 GMT -5
There's a website with tons of old articles about KH. Can't remember what it is (I think it has some connection with the Tracy-Hepburn podcast), but it has an article about Garson Kanin from 1939 and one KHST from around the time of Adam's Rib that is particularly cute, among many others. There's also a transcript of the Phil Donahue interview. Someone have a link? Of course, some of your best sources will be the members here. That link went to the external harddrive in the sky, m'friend. Yes, there is a cute little AR article about Kate waltzing onto a Spencer Tracy set---he promptly makes her blush with some jackass snide comment. That man is a pal-o-mine. The article focusing on what Garson had to say [Read: A dish of Nothing, served cold] was about two pages and homeboy was crushing on Kate big time. He even brags about buying her an engraved cigarette case, from what I remember, although the passage eludes even me. LOL, oh Gar. You're going to lose the girl by setting her up with the guy. Smart thinkin'. I believe the title of the thing was called, "All Right! I'll talk about Kate!" LIKE YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SHARE, BRO. (My mind, she is like a sponge.) "Star as Feminist" is a redundant, albeit cerebral read, but it's great for theory and analysis prompts. Check it out of the lie-berry if you can. For the bookshelves, I recommend: "Chasing Hepburn", by Gus Lee "Knowing Hepburn and Other Curious Experiences", by James Prideaux See, the problem that you're going to run into with these more easily accessible books is, well, 89.9% of them suck. Try scanning the shelves of your college's "Theatre, Plays, Playwrights" units. Are you connected to JStor.com, the archiving website for academic journals? ProjectMuse is yet another great source. Kate's the subject of more gender-bending journal writings than I'd care to be privy to. You don't want to fall into bias, though, so watch out for that. Fangirling is damn near inevitable, which is why I have yet to write scholarly about Kate. I firmly believe one should never analyze Kate, because you're going to end up in a circle and scratching your head. Luckily, you're merely reporting, so in the immortal words of Obi One Kenobi: May the force be with you.
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Post by HollywoodHepcat on Dec 2, 2009 22:55:18 GMT -5
Argghh. I hate when I miss a post because I'm busy commenting. Blerg. I think you'd have a lot more to write about politically if you talked about Kit Hepburn, but I sense you can't write about TWO Hepburns, lol. Why is your proffy insisting you write about shoddy work? Frankly, that's dumb and not very academic. I think you're setting your brain up for this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-22tna7KHzI
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Post by courtneymarie on Dec 2, 2009 23:18:08 GMT -5
Thanks for the insight I'm not sure what my professor wants is that exactly...We have to use mostly secondary sources for this essay so what I mean is that obviously not all of them are true and I have to point out what exactly they are saying about my topic. This is an account of how other authors/historians have approached and written about my topic... This is from our guidelines: "inform readers about, some of the major writings on this topic, how these sources differer from one another, how each of these historians represents a philosophy or perspective" I am going to use topical and chronological arrangement for my essay...I think I am going to discuss Kit with the background that she really shaped her (Kate's) point of views on a number of topics. of the topics I have so far are: -Birth control -women's rights -her fashion (ie. wearing slacks when it wasn't really acceptable) -her lifestyle -her political thoughts -her personality -her movies...importantly her role of strong independent women in most of them and the changing of the end of "Woman of the Year" to fit the status quo If anyone has any other suggestions I would really appreciate it...I know that all of the authors who have written about Kate have tackled all of these topics and that is what I have to focus on...what they thought...( instead of what I think...ugh) Court
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Post by CrazyForKate on Dec 2, 2009 23:24:27 GMT -5
That link went to the external harddrive in the sky, m'friend. Yes, there is a cute little AR article about Kate waltzing onto a Spencer Tracy set---he promptly makes her blush with some jackass snide comment. That man is a pal-o-mine. The article focusing on what Garson had to say [Read: A dish of Nothing, served cold] was about two pages and homeboy was crushing on Kate big time. He even brags about buying her an engraved cigarette case, from what I remember, although the passage eludes even me. LOL, oh Gar. You're going to lose the girl by setting her up with the guy. Smart thinkin'. I believe the title of the thing was called, "All Right! I'll talk about Kate!" LIKE YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SHARE, BRO. (My mind, she is like a sponge.) Tracked it down! T-H articles live again! www.brisbin.net/Tracy-Hepburn/
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Post by HollywoodHepcat on Dec 2, 2009 23:33:35 GMT -5
OH MY GOD IT WAS RESURRECTED FROM THE GRAVE. I LOVE YOU.
Powr powr, Court. You've got a good start there! Let us know how it goes.
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Post by Judy on Dec 2, 2009 23:35:32 GMT -5
I am focusing on her achievements in the political and social spheres...like the birth control movement etc... I have to discuss the other authors...whether good or bad... that have written about her...and compare and contrast what their point of views are and not necessarily the truth...that's why it is so hard...I want to interject my ideas in as well and that is not the proper way to write a paper like the one I have to Court Courtney - Go here for some info re Kate's mother, Margaret Sanger and Kate www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/secure/newsletter/articles/hepburn.htmlAlso - see if you can find Kate Lardner's book in the library - Ring Lardner, Jr's daughter - in which she reprints the 1950 letter Kate wrote to the US Board of Parole in Washington, DC, which she later denied writing - but which she clearly did - either because she forgot or more likely because she didn't want to take undue credit. It's not a political letter. In fact, she veers away from talking about his or her own politics - wise move in 1950; she wasn't stupid and was probably advised to do so - and instead defends his character and the importance of returning him to his family. In my view she did the smart thing. It would have been folly to have climbed up on a soap box and argued in a letter what he couldn't argue at his witch hunt in front of HUAC. So she did not even go into that. In fact she claimed not to know anything about his politics - which is doubtful but unimportant to get her point across. Even so, it still was not exactly the done thing in 1950, so it was a courageous thing for her to do and Lardner was grateful for it. For a synopsis of the book, go to this link and scroll down to the review titled "Dan Leab reviews Kate Lardner's Shut Up, He Explained: The Memoir of a Blacklisted Kid (Ballantine, 2004)" hnn.us/roundup/archives/36/2004/11/#8313
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Post by charliesgirl7681 on Dec 3, 2009 1:48:13 GMT -5
Ah a fellow history major! I just finished mine on Eleanor of Aquitine. I wish I could have done Kate but sadly she was not born in England, which was a requirment. Good luck, I know how much 'fun' these are.
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Post by courtneymarie on Dec 3, 2009 11:09:27 GMT -5
Ah yes..."Fun" lol ...I guess they are in a way I actually did a 15 page paper comparing and contrasting Eleanor of Aquitaine and Queen Clotilda last semester for an Early Middle Ages course...got an A so Hope ur paper gets a good grade too...I have about 8 pages done and I need 25 by the end of finals week which is the 18th...I hope I get this finished Thank you everyone for the help and support...there is just so much to discuss about Kate! Court
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Post by dreamer on Dec 5, 2009 3:24:13 GMT -5
The worlds of mother and daughter collided in January 1934. As Katharine Houghton Hepburn spoke at a widely-publicized birth control conference in Washington and led a delegation to the White House. Kate, hounded by reporters, was asked to comment on her mother’s work, publicly supported birth control and the efforts of her mother and Sanger to change the law. She expressed irritation over how the press referred to her mother as the "mother of the actress," asserting that it was her mother who was important; not she. In a series of letters, featured in the upcoming second volume of The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger, Katharine Houghton Hepburn asked Sanger to write to Kate "thanking her" since "it means a good deal of sacrifice for [her] to stand openly with us." (Barbara Leaming, Katharine Hepburn [New York, 1995], 292; Katharine Houghton Hepburn to MS, Jan. 24, 1934 [LCM 88:237].)
Sanger wrote to Kate the next day:
"I hope that this battle for Birth Control, where your glorious mother stood out so valiantly for her opinions is not going to get you in bad. You Hepburns have such courage, are such straight shooters, and are so straightforward in your thinking that I know it will be difficult for you to think of your public–especially your Catholic public, if you have such a thing. I do not say that you should–I only want to tell you that I adore your mother and I think she is wonderful to come and make the splendid fight beside us dreading all the time to get you mixed in the affair. I am not afraid that anything that your mother says will in any way hurt you. You have won your reputation by your own ability and talent, and through those qualities alone you will win or lose. If it were otherwise, I should certainly say that we should put the soft pedal on the name of Hepburn. I am not afraid, and I am sure that you are not." (MS to Katharine Hepburn, Jan. 25, 1934 [LCM 8:1070])
Unsure whether she had accomplished what Kate’s mother requested of her, Sanger wrote to the senior Katharine:
"Now, as to your daughter Kate, I wrote her but for the life of me I could not tell that wonderful creature to do anything against her own divine inspiration. I believe it is the [don’ts] and the do’s of the elders constantly tugging at our young people that give them complexes and disturbs a very definite, inspired flare that a few of them have. Your Katharine is in that group and I believe that her public loves and adores her for her spirit and undaunted courage that she expresses in every part she has played so far. To be less than herself in considering a mythical public would, dear Kate, be damping down a flame that must have air and room to send out its light. The whole thing will die down in a few days and I hope you will feel that whatever she does when it expresses her inate feeling, is the right thing to do." (MS to Katharine Houghton Hepburn, Jan. 26, 1934 [LCM 125:220B])
Somehow Sanger had misconstrued the older Hepburn’s intentions, believing the mother wanted to tone down her daughter. Katharine Houghton Hepburn wrote back in the margins of Sanger’s letter:
"What did you think I said? All I wanted was for you to write and say you were pleased at her coming out for us as I knew that her studio would protest. She admires you & I thought that it would please her. Of course she did the right thing — I’d have spanked her if she hadn’t."
Kate was characteristically nonchalant about this media episode, telling Sanger:
"Don’t worry about me, its much too important for that — When they ask me what I think I say that I stand back of every thing that Mother & you say on the subject." (Katharine Hepburn to MS, Jan. 29, 1934 [LCM 8:1071])
Sanger and Katharine Houghton Hepburn saw each other infrequently after the dissolution of the National Committee in 1937. But Sanger kept up with Kate’s career, noting in her calendars when she saw the newest Hepburn film or Broadway production. Sanger tried to get Kate to speak at a Birth Control Federation annual meeting in 1941, remembering her words of support for the movement in 1934: "Your words were what one would expect from the daughter of your mother, and I hope that you had no cause to regret your courage, integrity and forthrightness on the occasion of which I speak." (MS to Katharine Hepburn, Oct. 31, 1941 [MSM S20:188].) But Hepburn’s the "Woman of the Year" – her first film with Spencer Tracy was released early in 1942 – and she was too busy to accept the invitation. It would have been interesting to have heard what Kate had to say had she had time to speak in 1941. Thank you Judy – it was a joy to read how Kate and Kit supported each other. Not that we would have expected anything else – just a joy to read. Kit and Kate sounds very alike ;D
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Post by gottamatch on Dec 5, 2009 5:20:48 GMT -5
Wow Courtney, how many words does it have to be? I would love to read it when you have completed it! Good luck Jess
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