Clara and Mr. Tiffany
by Susan Vreeland

Reviewed by Jean Graham

In 2005, art historians were astonished to learn from previously unknown correspondence that the exquisite stained glass lamps attributed to Louis Comfort Tiffany were most likely conceived and designed by Clara Driscoll, one of the “Tiffany girls” who labored anonymously in Tiffany workrooms in New York City, creating the spectacular lamps and windows that were Tiffany‘s signature styles.

Susan Vreeland, whose five previous novels explore a variety of art-related themes, gives Clara and her female crew their due in this well-wrought novel that not only sheds light on the unsung accomplishments of women in the workplace between 1892 and 1908, but is a richly detailed re-creation of Gilded Age Manhattan. Some of the Tiffany girls came from the teeming tenements that were home to arriving immigrants and some, like Clara, lived in boardinghouses inhabited, in Vreeland’s novel, by an arresting cast of characters. Mr. Tiffany, in contrast, inhabited one of the excessively elaborate uptown mansions favored by the rich.

Vreeland’s description of the processes involved in producing stained glass pieces — from glassblowing to choosing the perfect colors and cutting thousands of pieces of glass to render the flower or butterfly or seasonal motif — are fascinating, making “Clara and Mr. Tiffany” not only an enjoyable read, but an illuminating one as well.

Jean Graham is a freelance writer from Brookside.

Chicago Poems
by Carl Sandburg

Carl Sandburg was virtually unknown to the literary world when, in 1914, a group of his poems appeared in the nationally circulated Poetry magazine. Two years later his book Chicago Poems was published, and the thirty-eight-year-old author found himself on the brink of a career that would bring him international acclaim.

Carl Sandburg worked from the time he was a young boy. He quit school following his graduation from eighth grade in 1891 and spent a decade working a variety of jobs. He delivered milk, harvested ice, laid bricks, threshed wheat in Kansas, and shined shoes in Galesburg's Union Hotel before traveling as a hobo in 1897.

Sandburg's experiences working and traveling greatly influenced his writing and political views. He saw first-hand the sharp contrast between rich and poor, a dichotomy that instilled in him a distrust of capitalism.

(Pulled from www.carl-sandburg.com)

Our moderator for several years has been Pat Bartinique, a professor of English, an Arts & Crafts collector, an author and a twenty-two year attendee at the Grove Park Inn. Pat reads each of the suggested works, then narrows the list down for us based on her experience both as a reader and as a teacher.