Letters of the Century: America 1900-1999 [Hardcover]

Lisa Grunwald (Editor), Stephen J. Adler (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 19, 1999

"Immediate and evocative, letters witness and fasten history, catching events as they happen," write Lisa Grunwald and Stephen J. Adler in their introduction to this remarkable book.  In more than 400 letters from both famous figures and ordinary citizens, Letters of the Century encapsulates the people and places, events and trends that shaped our nation during the last 100 years.

Here is Mark Twain's hilarious letter of complaint to the head of Western Union, an ecstatic letter from a young Charlie Chaplin upon receiving his first movie contract, Einstein's letter to Franklin Roosevelt warning about atomic warfare, Mark Rudd's "generation gap" letter to the president of Columbia University during the student riots of the 60s, and a letter from young Bill Gates imploring hobbyists not to share software so that innovators can make some money...

In these pages, our century's most celebrated figures become everyday people and everyday people become part of history. Here is a veteran's wrenching letter left at the Vietnam Wall, a poignant correspondence between two women trying to become mothers, a heart-breaking letter from an AIDS sufferer telling his parents how he wants to be buried, an indignant e-mail from a PC user to his on-line server...    

"Letters," write Grunwald and Adler, "give history a voice."  Arranged chronologically by decade, illustrated with over 100 photographs, Letters of the Century creates an extraordinary chronicle of our history, through the voices of the men and women who have lived its greatest moments.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Letters of the Century opens by recalling a pregnant mother's letter to Jonas Salk the day after he discovered a vaccine for polio. The book's editors, veteran journalists Lisa Grunwald and Stephen J. Adler, try to describe that letter's emotional impact: "The difference between knowing that Americans were grateful to Jonas Salk and reading this letter to him is like the difference between knowing the words of a song and hearing it sung. Letters give history a voice."

Organizing them by decade, with helpful annotations for context, this couple has assembled 423 such exceptional letters, culled from a thousand times that many; each gives witness to a sliver of the century, from the bombing of Pearl Harbor to the patenting of Coca-Cola's glass bottle, from the tension of the Bay of Pigs to the flush of Internet romance. Letters to lovers, threats from gangsters, pleas to judges for mercy, tracts from terrorists, junk mail from evangelists, advice from Ann Landers, even young JFK's message carved on a coconut after PT-109 was sunk--all combine to provide one of the most authentic, resonant, and real histories imaginable, a sweeping and often intensely personal chronicle of the American 20th century, as told by the famous, the infamous, and the obscure. --Paul Hughes

From Publishers Weekly

Leaving few stones unturned, the husband-and-wife journalist team of Grunwald and Adler (a former Esquire features editor and a Wall Street Journal assistant managing editor, respectively) have compiled a riveting epistolary chronicle of 20th-century America. Comprising 423 letters that are by turns intimate, bureaucratic, officious and epoch-defining, the book is divided by decades, and each chapter opens with a list of salient facts of the period, to give context. Ranging widely in subject and tone, the letters offer remarkable glimpses of various facets of American life. There's a missive from Carl van Vechten to Theodore Dreiser explaining how to acquire liquor during Prohibition (dial a certain number, refer to vodka as "white" and whiskey as "gold"); a letter from a Vietnam soldier named Dusty distraught over having killed a nine-year-old grenade-wielding girl; and from the Starr Report" a letter from an FBI examiner to the FBI declaring the semen on Monica's infamous blue dress to be Bill Clinton's. Some letters are extremely personal: there's a message from Ethel Rosenberg to her children, Jacqueline Kennedy's thank you note to Lyndon Johnson written the day after her husband's funeral, and a "coming-out" letter from a gay businessman to his parents. Others are of great public significance: Franklin D. Roosevelt's dispatch to His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Japan, dated December 6, 1941, in which the president pleads with Hirohito to cease his belligerent activities (and of which FDR told his wife: "This son of man has just sent his final message to the son of God"); and John F. Kennedy's plea for rescue, written on a coconut, from the island to which he'd swam when his PT boat went down. Others, such as the exchange between the Ford Motor Company and Marianne Moore, are delightfully funny. Asked to suggest names for a new car, the poet responds, in a series of three letters, with such ideas as "Bullet Lavolta," "Mongoose Civique" and "Utopian Turtletop," only to be told, some time later, that the company has chosen a different name, one with "gaiety and zest"Athe Edsel. "Surprisingly few" letters, write Grunwald and Adler, "contain truly famous lines." An exception they note is Lillian Hellman's dramatic, much-quoted letter to HUAC refusing to "cut my conscience to fit this year's fashion." The absence of celebrated lines, however, is not missed: aphorisms, after all, have a closed, independent quality, at odds with many of the engaging, profoundly revealing letters found in this volume. The reader is often too deep in dialogue with the voices emerging from these pages to miss anything that might have wished simply to be admired on its own.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 752 pages
• Publisher: The Dial Press; First Edition edition (October 19, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385315902
• ISBN-13: 978-0385315906
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.4 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #676,958 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lisa Grunwald is the author of the novels Whatever Makes You Happy, New Year's Eve, The Theory of Everything, and Summer. Along with her husband, Stephen J. Adler, she edited the bestselling anthologies Women's Letters and Letters of the Century. Grunwald is a former contributing editor to Life and a former features editor of Esquire. Find her on Facebook, at Lisa Grunwald's Author Page, follow her on Twitter at lisa_grunwald, or at www.lisagrunwald.net

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

76 of 79 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An oral history of the Twentieth Century in America., December 20, 1999

By 

Kurt A. Johnson (North-Central Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Letters of the Century: America 1900-1999 (Hardcover)

Letters of the Century is an eclectic collection of letters written during the Twentieth Century. Some are from or to famous people and others are from and to more common folk, but all are pertinent for one reason or another. Each letter has an introductory paragraph, explaining why the letter is important. Further, the letters are organized into chronological order, and as a bonus each decade has an introduction, covering important events and statistics. Finally, the book contains an excellent index.

At first glance, I didn't take this book seriously. However, once I began reading it, I was enthralled. The letters run the gamut, from angering to touching. It's hard to say more than that you need to read this book to understand it, and it is a very good book indeed.

69 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect Bathroom Reading, Perfect Holiday Gift, December 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Letters of the Century: America 1900-1999 (Hardcover)

Great bathroom read and it's thick enough (760 pages!) to count as a legitimate gift. All of the letters are interesting and some absolutely take your breath away (1934 letter from the head of the NAACP trying unsuccessfully to stop a lynching in Florida). Some are hilarious (Groucho Marx writing the Warner Brothers about "A Night in Casablanca" after they threatened him because of similarities to "Casablanca"). I've already given this book as a present to friends, relatives, and my kids' teachers (great gift to teachers!) and have heard nothing but raves. What a treat to find this meticulously researched and beautifully written jewel of a book. Letters of the Century definitely has "legs" (and a cute nose). I expect it to be on the best seller list for a long time to come.

54 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome and Enlightning, December 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Letters of the Century: America 1900-1999 (Hardcover)

If you love history this book will give you an idea of every day life from both the famous and the every day person. The letter from Jackie to Lyndon Johnson was especially moving as were the letters for Dec. 7 1944. This book truely shows how far we have come as a civilization and the importance of every man!