1927
John Eberson’s movie palace, The Avalon, opened in Chicago.
Vers Une Architecture (1923) by Le Corbusier is translated into the English
Toward a New Architecture and published in New York.
Elsa Schiparelli made her fashion debut with the “optical illusion” sweater.
General Motors added an Art and Colour Section, headed by Harley J. Earl.
Grauman’s Chinese Theater opened in Hollywood.
Popular Movies included The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson, The
Scarlet Letter starring Lillian Gish, It starring Clara Bow, Underworld
starring George Bancroft, Evelyn Brent, and Clive Brook, Flesh and the
Devil starring John Gilbert and Greta Garbo, Seventh Heaven starring
Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell, Love starring John Gilbert and Greta
Garbo, The King of Kings directed by Cecil B. DeMille, and The
Way of All Flesh starring Emil Jannings.
Popular fiction and poetry included Conrad Aiken’s Blue Voyage, James
Branch Cabell’s Something About Eve, Willa Cather’s Death Comes
to the Archbishop, Julia Peterkin’s Black April, Upton Sinclair’s
Oil!, Edith Wharton’s Twilight Sleep, S.S. Van Dine’s The
Canary Murder Case, Thronton Wilder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey,
Sinclair Lewis’s Elmer Gantry, Countee Cullen’s The Ballad of the
Brown Girl: An Old Ballad Retold, Caroling Dusk, and Copper Sun, Langston
Hughes’s Fine Clothes to the Jew, Don Marquis’s Archy and Mehitabel,
and E.A. Robinson’s Tristram.
Popular songs included Jules Bledsoe’s “Ol’ Man River,” Helen Morgan’s “Bill”
and “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man,” Fred Astaire’s “S’ Wonderful,” Fain &
Dunn’s “Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella,” Belle Parker’s “Blue Skies,” John
Price Jones & Mary Lawler’s “The Best Things in Life are Free,” Frank
Fay’s “Me and My Shadow,” Gene Austin’s “My Blue Heaven,” Ruth Etting’s “It
All Depends on You,” Vernon Dalhart, “Lindbergh, Eagle of the U.S.A.”
Edward Hopper painted Manhattan Bridge.
Georgia O’Keefe painted Radiator Building.
Mahonri Young sculpted Right to the Jaw.
The American Association for Old Age Security was founded by Abraham Epstein.
Judge Ben Lindsey published Companionate Marriage.
The richest man in America was Al Capone.
March 7: the Supreme Court struck down
a Texas law excluding Blacks from voting in Democratic Primaries.
March 11: Samuel L. Rothafel’s Roxy Theater
opened at Seventh Avenue and Fiftieth Street in New York City premiering
The Love of Sunya starring Gloria Swanson.
May 25: Henry Ford announced the discontinuation
of the Model T Ford.
August 23: Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo
Vanzetti were put to death in spite of massive protest by the likes of Edna
St. Vincent Millay, Dorothy Parker, Albert Einstein, Jane Addams and H.G.
Wells.
September 8: Bix Beiderbecke recorded “In a
Mist.”
November 3: A Connecticut Yankee
opened with songs by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart.
November 22: Funny Face opened
with songs by George and Ira Gershwin starring Fred and Adele Astaire.
December 4: Duke Ellington’s orchestra
began its engagement with the Cotton Club in Harlem.
December 27: Show Boat with songs
by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II starring Helen Morgan, Charles Winninger
and Edna May Oliver opened.
Paris Bound by Philip Barry opened.