Speaker 1: Welcome to steph you missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. Today's podcast
Speaker 1: is coming out on Valentine's Day, so we thought it
Speaker 1: would be a good day to talk about a famous
Speaker 1: literary couple, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Tokaliss. Gertrude Stein
Speaker 1: is an icon in the world of modernist literature, and
Speaker 1: although Alice B. Tokaliss is more often described as her
Speaker 1: partner and assistant, she was a published writer as well,
Speaker 1: and assistant does not really begin to cover how important
Speaker 1: she was to Stein's life and work. Also, together, the
Speaker 1: two of them famously hosted a salon at their Paris
Speaker 1: home that was frequented by artists and writers such as
Speaker 1: Pablo Picasso, f Scott Fitzgerald, and Arima Tisse. And that
Speaker 1: salon was really influential in the whole world of literature
Speaker 1: and art. Yeah, it gets referenced in a lot of
Speaker 1: people's life biographies that oh we met at Gertrudge stein
Speaker 1: sala Uh, that she's kind of becomes a big, big
Speaker 1: connecting point in in history at that point so. Gertrude
Speaker 1: Stein was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, on February third, eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy four. She was the youngest of five children. She
Speaker 1: had two sisters and two brothers, and her father was
Speaker 1: an immigrant to the United States, having moved here from
Speaker 1: Bavaria in eighteen forty one. The family was Jewish, and
Speaker 1: although they belonged to a synagogue, they were not particularly observant.
Speaker 1: Gertrude's family moved back to her for five years when
Speaker 1: she was still a baby, and when they returned they
Speaker 1: started out in Baltimore, where Gertrude had relatives on her
Speaker 1: mother's side. Eventually, though, they moved to Oakland, California, and
Speaker 1: they lived really comfortably there thanks to her father's investments
Speaker 1: and rental properties and street car lines. They were a
Speaker 1: pretty well off family. Gertrude Stein is the person who
Speaker 1: coined the famous phrase there is no there there, and
Speaker 1: it was in reference to Oakland. Out of context, people
Speaker 1: tended to interpret it as being dismissive of Oakland as
Speaker 1: a city, but it comes from Everybody's Autobiography, which she
Speaker 1: published in nineteen thirty seven, and it's really more about
Speaker 1: the painfully nostalgic experience of trying to go home again
Speaker 1: and finding that everything has changed. By the time Gertrude
Speaker 1: was seventeen, both of her parents had died, her mother
Speaker 1: in eight and her father in eighteen nine. After her
Speaker 1: father's death, Gertrude's oldest brother, Michael inherited the family businesses.
Speaker 1: He took her and her siblings with him to San Francisco,
Speaker 1: where he was a division superintendent of the Market Street Railway.
Speaker 1: After about a year, Gertrude, her brother Leo, and her
Speaker 1: sister Bertha all moved back to Baltimore to live with
Speaker 1: an aunt. Gertrude and Leo were very close, and when
Speaker 1: he got into Harvard, she went to Cambridge, Massachusetts with him.
Speaker 1: She enrolled at Harvard School for Women, which was known
Speaker 1: as Harvard Annex when she started, but had been renamed
Speaker 1: Radcliffe College by the time she graduated in eight While
Speaker 1: she was in college, Gertrude Stein was deeply interested in psychology.
Speaker 1: She studied under psychologist William James. She published two formal
Speaker 1: papers in psychology before she graduated. The first of them,
Speaker 1: which was her first published work ever, was Quote Normal
Speaker 1: Motor Automatism, which she co authored with Leon Solomon's. This
Speaker 1: paper detailed a series of experiments and automatic writing, so
Speaker 1: the subjects would have their hand resting on a plant set,
Speaker 1: they would focus their attention on something else, like reading
Speaker 1: a story, and like let their hand right on its own.
Speaker 1: And just to be clear, since automatic writing also has
Speaker 1: some paranormal connotations, they were interpreting the writing that resulted
Speaker 1: from these experiments as the work of the subconscious, not
Speaker 1: as the work of some kind of spirit it. There
Speaker 1: were no Wegiboards President uh In. This work in the
Speaker 1: psychology lab influenced Stein's later writing. James's own work in
Speaker 1: psychology influenced her as well, particularly the idea of a
Speaker 1: stream of consciousness, which was first described in his eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety The Principles of Psychology. We're going to talk more
Speaker 1: about that later. After graduating from Radcliffe, Stein went to
Speaker 1: on to Johns Hopkins Medical School. She started there in
Speaker 1: eight but it didn't go very well. Towards the end
Speaker 1: of her studies, she started failing classes. She had also
Speaker 1: become infatuated with Mary Bookstaver, who was nicknamed May. She
Speaker 1: was involved with one of Gertrude Stein's classmates. May did
Speaker 1: not return Gertrude's affections, and Gertrude had already really been
Speaker 1: struggling with depressions, so all of this together left her
Speaker 1: feeling really dejected and despondent, and a fictionalized version of
Speaker 1: May Bookstaver would be part of some of Gertrude Stein's
Speaker 1: later creative work. By this point, Leo Stein had moved
Speaker 1: to London, so in nineteen o two Gertrude dropped out
Speaker 1: of Johns Hopkins and joined him there. In nineteen o three,
Speaker 1: they moved to France, where Leo had a flat at
Speaker 1: Rue de Fleroux in Montpown, Mass. Michael and Sarah Stein,
Speaker 1: along with their son Alan, soon moved into a home
Speaker 1: nearby as well. And Michael had been shrewd in his
Speaker 1: management of their father's investments, and it was largely his
Speaker 1: money that allowed them all to have a very comfortable
Speaker 1: life in France. It was in France, at the age
Speaker 1: of twenty nine, that Gertrude Stein really started to dedicate
Speaker 1: herself to writing. She and her brother were also patrons
Speaker 1: of the arts. They sought out avant garde artists whose
Speaker 1: work was at the time unknown. This developed into a
Speaker 1: massive collection of modern art by people who would become
Speaker 1: really famous. They were basically buying art from people who
Speaker 1: nobody knew about at the time, and then later on
Speaker 1: those those people would have a serious name for themselves.
Speaker 1: The biggest presences in that collection where pulses on On
Speaker 1: Rimatiss and Pablo Picasso. A lot of other artists are
Speaker 1: part of this collection, to including Edward Money and Henri
Speaker 1: to Lose la Trek. This collection literally filled the walls
Speaker 1: at Rue de Florus and in night. James R. Mello,
Speaker 1: writing for The New York Times, described it as the
Speaker 1: first the world's first museum of modern art. I know
Speaker 1: I'm romanticizing it, but this whole life situation sounds pretty heavenly,
Speaker 1: like where we have enough money to kind of do
Speaker 1: what we want. Let's go find unknown and obscure artists.
Speaker 1: We'll just have beautiful art around us all the time,
Speaker 1: and we live in France. That sounds lovely, yet it
Speaker 1: really does um And it's likely that Leo was really
Speaker 1: the one who introduced Gertrude to the Parisian art scene,
Speaker 1: but Gertrude developed a particular interest in one specific artist,
Speaker 1: and that was Pablo Picasso. Gertrude's patronage helped Picasso stay
Speaker 1: afloat in the early part of his career. In nineteen
Speaker 1: o six, he painted her portrait, which is in the
Speaker 1: collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art today. In nineteen
Speaker 1: o seven, Gertrude Stein met Alice B. Tokless. Alice was
Speaker 1: born in San Francisco on April eighteen seventy seven. Her
Speaker 1: parents were Ferdinand to Kleis and emmil Evinski, and she
Speaker 1: was their oldest child and their only daughter. Like Gertrude,
Speaker 1: Alice's father was an immigrant, having to come to Poland
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty five. Her mother's father and uncle's had
Speaker 1: emigrated from Poland as well. Another similarity between the two
Speaker 1: families is that the Toklises were Jewish, but not especially observant.
Speaker 1: Alice had a well off, but otherwise conventional childhood, with
Speaker 1: the family moving to Seattle in eighteen ninety. She attended
Speaker 1: private schools before going to the University of Seattle, and
Speaker 1: she enjoyed art and music, and she was good enough
Speaker 1: at the piano that for a while she actually thought
Speaker 1: about becoming a concert pianist. Alice also loved reading, and
Speaker 1: her favorite writer was Henry James brother of Gertrude psychology
Speaker 1: mentor William James. The Tokliss family eventually moved back to
Speaker 1: San Francisco, and Alice's mother, Emma, died there in eighteen seven,
Speaker 1: when Alice was twenty. In San Francisco, the Totalists became
Speaker 1: acquainted with some of the Stein family, and in nineteen
Speaker 1: o six, in the wake of the San Francisco earthquake,
Speaker 1: Michael and Sarah Stein traveled back from France to check
Speaker 1: on all their property there. Alice was captivated by the
Speaker 1: Stein's stories of Europe, and since the death of her mother,
Speaker 1: she had found herself spending most of her time keeping
Speaker 1: house for the men in her family. She had also
Speaker 1: come to understand that she was attracted to other women.
Speaker 1: All of this together made her life in California feel
Speaker 1: really narrow and restrictive, so in nineteen o seven, at
Speaker 1: the age of thirty, she decided to try to find
Speaker 1: more freedom for herself in Paris, traveling there with her
Speaker 1: friend Harriet Lane Levy. On September eight, Gertrude Stein met
Speaker 1: Alice B. Toklis for the first time at the Paris
Speaker 1: home of Michael Stein. That was Toklis's first day in Paris,
Speaker 1: and we will talk about how they started to build
Speaker 1: a life together after a quick sponsor break. After meeting
Speaker 1: in seven, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklis formed a
Speaker 1: friendship that developed into a loving relationship that would last
Speaker 1: for almost four decades. Stein focused on her writing and
Speaker 1: on her connections within the Paris art scene, and then
Speaker 1: Totalis supported that work. She offered encouragement, She transcribed, she typed,
Speaker 1: she made corrections, She managed their household in their life together,
Speaker 1: even though they often had a hired cook. Toklist was
Speaker 1: also very skilled in the kitchen and she did putita
Speaker 1: point embroidery, including in designs that Pablo Picasso created for her.
Speaker 1: So cool. Well uh. Two years after they met, Stein
Speaker 1: published her first book, Three Lives. One of the pieces
Speaker 1: in it is a novella called Malantha, and it's about
Speaker 1: a woman of the same name who has described in
Speaker 1: the book as a mulatto and her relationship with a
Speaker 1: black doctor. At the time, this story earned a lot
Speaker 1: of praise for being a depiction of black life written
Speaker 1: by a white woman, but of course today that seems
Speaker 1: patronizing and dated, and it was largely about Stein's relationship
Speaker 1: with May Bookstaver recast as being between a man and
Speaker 1: woman of color. Alice moved in with Gertrude and Leo
Speaker 1: in nt and things did not go very well between
Speaker 1: the two siblings. Some of Leo's differences with his sister
Speaker 1: were artistic. Leo didn't think Gertrude's writing was particularly good,
Speaker 1: which Gertrude resented. Gertrude had also become an avid supporter
Speaker 1: of the Cubist art movement, which Leo didn't think was
Speaker 1: particularly valuable or noteworthy. This seems like such a sibling thing, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: But on a more personal level, Uh, the word homophobia
Speaker 1: had not been coined yet, and as we talk about
Speaker 1: in our recent episode on Anne Lister, the idea of
Speaker 1: lesbianism as an identity was in its infancy at the
Speaker 1: turn of the twentieth century. But Leo knew that Gertrude
Speaker 1: and Ellis were not simply close platonic friends, and he
Speaker 1: did not approve of that. So in nine thirteen, Leo
Speaker 1: Stein moved out of the flat at rue Des. He
Speaker 1: and Gertrude divided up that massive art collection, with Gertrude's
Speaker 1: portion including the picassos. When they were done, Leo wrote
Speaker 1: to his sister, saying, quote, I hope that we will
Speaker 1: all live happily ever after and maintain our respective and
Speaker 1: do proportions while sucking gleefully our respective oranges. During their
Speaker 1: time living together, Gertrude and her brother had been regularly
Speaker 1: hosting artists in their home, but Leo had been the
Speaker 1: more outgoing, gregarious one. Gertrude had mostly stuck to the background,
Speaker 1: and once her brother moved out, Gertrude moved into his
Speaker 1: former role, often being the one to talk to writers
Speaker 1: and painters while Alice socialized with their wives. A lot
Speaker 1: of Stein's work from the nineteen teens was inspired by Cubism,
Speaker 1: that very geometric, abstract movement that was inspired by art
Speaker 1: from Africa and the Iberian Peninsula. Cubism distilled life down
Speaker 1: to geometric forms, and in the movements earlier years, you
Speaker 1: could usually still recognize what the original subject of the
Speaker 1: painting had been, so for example, Picasso's La Demoiselle d'amiol,
Speaker 1: for example, is obviously a group of nude women, but
Speaker 1: they're also painted in a very angular and flattened way.
Speaker 1: By about nineteen ten, though Cubist painters were doing what
Speaker 1: was called hermetic or analytic Cubism, and this had a
Speaker 1: lot of overlapping angular shapes, often in a very monochrome pellette,
Speaker 1: with the real subject that had, you know, been the
Speaker 1: starting point for the painting being barely discernible, if at all.
Speaker 1: Stein did with words what the Cubist painters were doing
Speaker 1: with paint and canvas. Rather than trying to write descriptively
Speaker 1: in a conventional way that reflected real life, she distilled
Speaker 1: things down to little bits and seemingly disconnected words. A
Speaker 1: good example is nineteen fourteen's Tender Buttons, a collection of
Speaker 1: experimental hermetic pieces arranged into objects, food, and rooms. So
Speaker 1: to give listeners a sense of what this was like,
Speaker 1: Dog from Objects reads quote a little monkey goes like
Speaker 1: a donkey. That means to say that means to say
Speaker 1: that more size, last goes leave with it. A little
Speaker 1: monkey goes like a donkey. Stein's work was also heavily
Speaker 1: influenced by William James's ideas of the stream of consciousness,
Speaker 1: which we mentioned earlier. As James described it, a person's
Speaker 1: states of mind change, but all these states connect to
Speaker 1: one another, and within these different connected states, ideas and
Speaker 1: words repeat themselves, but their meaning changes through that repetition
Speaker 1: and through their relationships to each other. Stein put this
Speaker 1: concept into practice in works like Sacred Emily, which was
Speaker 1: where she first penned her most famous line, rose is
Speaker 1: a rose is a rose is a rose. Sacred Emily
Speaker 1: was written in thirteen and published in the book Geography
Speaker 1: in Plays In. It's a three d sixty seven line poem,
Speaker 1: nearly all of it one in two syllable words, which
Speaker 1: recounts the day of an ordinary woman at home. The
Speaker 1: lines are really choppy, and they're repetitive. Seven lines in
Speaker 1: a row are just the word pale p a l
Speaker 1: e by itself. Some lines build on each other, so
Speaker 1: one portion of it reads quote put something down, put
Speaker 1: something down some day, put something down some day in
Speaker 1: put something down some day in my in my hand,
Speaker 1: in my hand right in my handwriting, put something down
Speaker 1: someday in my handwriting today. Gertrude Stein is considered to
Speaker 1: be a pioneer in modernist literature, but there is some
Speaker 1: debate about exactly how much of her work directly influenced
Speaker 1: other writers. At the time, Stream of Consciousness became its
Speaker 1: own style of writing, connected to but still distinct from,
Speaker 1: the Stream of conscious idea in William James's psychology work.
Speaker 1: James Joyce wrote Ulysses after being exposed to Stein's work,
Speaker 1: but it's not completely clear whether he intentionally followed her example.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, Stein's cubist and hermetic work definitely
Speaker 1: had its detractors, the same kinds of criticisms that you
Speaker 1: will hear about cubist art or modern abstract art in general. People,
Speaker 1: just as people describe abstract art as not art or
Speaker 1: as just blotches of paint or whatever, people described Stein's
Speaker 1: writing as unreadable nonsense that didn't mean anything and had
Speaker 1: no vow you. She kept at it, though. Stein and
Speaker 1: Toklis went to Majorca at the start of World War
Speaker 1: One and then returned to France in nineteen sixteen, where
Speaker 1: they volunteered for the American Fund for the French Wounded.
Speaker 1: Stein learned to drive, and she and Totalist started delivering
Speaker 1: hospital supplies to outposts in rural France. Back in Paris
Speaker 1: after the war, Stein and Toklis were still hosting their salons.
Speaker 1: They were still buying art, although now people like Picasso
Speaker 1: and Matisse were too famous for them to really afford.
Speaker 1: Stein really kept her focus on the avant garde, and
Speaker 1: they turned their attention to finding lesser known surrealists to
Speaker 1: buy their art. It was also after World War One
Speaker 1: that Stein coined the term lost generation for the American
Speaker 1: writers who had come of age during the war, and
Speaker 1: we're making a name for themselves. In the nineteen twenties,
Speaker 1: she said she'd heard a garage owner refer to young
Speaker 1: people as a general rastion beard, which means lost generation,
Speaker 1: and then later on she brought it up in a
Speaker 1: conversation with Ernest Hemingway, saying you are all a lost generation.
Speaker 1: It was Hemingway who popularized the term, which came to
Speaker 1: apply both to that whole generation of Americans and especially
Speaker 1: to the American expatriate writers living in Europe, including of
Speaker 1: course Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Through all of this,
Speaker 1: through the war, After the war, all of it, Stein
Speaker 1: and Tokliss were inseparable. They had a whole collection of
Speaker 1: pet names for one another. Stein called Totalist wifey, Totalist
Speaker 1: called Stein Lovey. They called each other Mr. And Mrs
Speaker 1: Cuddle Wettles. These are just examples. Stein often stayed up
Speaker 1: really late writing and she would leave little notes by
Speaker 1: the pillow for Totalist to find when she woke up
Speaker 1: in the morning, signing them y D for your Darling.
Speaker 1: Although Stein was definitely the more famous, Totalis played an
Speaker 1: active part in managing her literary career, including eventually managing
Speaker 1: the small press they established to publish Stein's more inventional works.
Speaker 1: It was Toklis's support that kept Stein writing through the
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties and into the early nineteen thirties. Although their
Speaker 1: salon was immensely popular and had become sort of an
Speaker 1: incubator for avant garde artists and writers, her more experimental
Speaker 1: and unconventional books didn't really sell. Stein wanted literary glory,
Speaker 1: and without Totalis urging her on, she might have given
Speaker 1: up in those years without it. Although people tend to
Speaker 1: describe the two women as near opposites, with Stein being
Speaker 1: the dominating force and the relationship, Toklist definitely held her
Speaker 1: own when she wanted to. Case in point, Ernest Hemingway
Speaker 1: made no secret of the fact that he wanted a
Speaker 1: sexual relationship with Gertrude Stein alasby Toklas was having none
Speaker 1: of that and eventually got Stein to cut him out
Speaker 1: of their social circle. Their relationship, though also was not
Speaker 1: a continual honeymoon with never a cross word. Multiple people
Speaker 1: who knew them commented on Stein and Toklis's ability to
Speaker 1: have really blistering fights. In three Stein published her most
Speaker 1: commercially successful work and her only bestseller, The Autobiography of
Speaker 1: Alice b Totalis. It is her most conventional book, except
Speaker 1: that it calls itself an autobiography, and it's written from
Speaker 1: Alice's point of view, but Gertrude is the author and
Speaker 1: it's largely about Gertrude. The book also gave Gertrude Stein
Speaker 1: a chance to write about herself as a genius without
Speaker 1: being like, hey, y'all, I'm a genius. As an example,
Speaker 1: here is how in Hopeless's voice, Gertrude Stein wrote of
Speaker 1: their first meeting quote, I may say that only three
Speaker 1: times in my life have I met a genius, and
Speaker 1: each time a bell within me rang, and I was
Speaker 1: not mistaken. And I may say that in each case
Speaker 1: it was before there was any general recognition of the
Speaker 1: quality of genius. And them the three geniuses of whom
Speaker 1: I wish to speak are Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, and
Speaker 1: Alfred Whitehead. Uh The autobi Bography of Alice b Tokliss
Speaker 1: also really emphasized Gertrude Stein's purported personal influence on the
Speaker 1: Cubism school of art, something that highly offended a great
Speaker 1: many Cubists artists. There's part of me that's like man
Speaker 1: I wish I had that kind of confidence. While both
Speaker 1: women had been well known in Parisian artistic and literary circles,
Speaker 1: this book made both of them internationally famous, Stein as
Speaker 1: its author and Toklist as its purported subject. They both
Speaker 1: traveled back to the United States so Stein could carry
Speaker 1: out a sold out lecture tour. This was a huge
Speaker 1: publicity event that included newsreel appearances, tea with First Lady
Speaker 1: Eleanor Roosevelt, and meetings with such famous names as Charlie Chaplin.
Speaker 1: This would also be Stein's last visit to the United
Speaker 1: States after a quick sponsor break, we will get to
Speaker 1: their lives during and after World War Two, which, in
Speaker 1: what may surprise some listeners, the extent of which surprised me,
Speaker 1: includes a heavy dose of supporting the Vici government and
Speaker 1: its collaborations with Nazi Germany. Between the two World Wars,
Speaker 1: Gertrude Stein and AlSb Toklast kept up their life in
Speaker 1: Paris when they weren't on that enormous and wildly successful
Speaker 1: publicity tour. They hosted their salons, they traveled, they kept
Speaker 1: on collecting art. They were also fond of dogs, and
Speaker 1: they had several list pets during their life together. In
Speaker 1: ninety seven, they moved into a new apartment at five
Speaker 1: for Christine. At the start of World War Two, Gertrude
Speaker 1: Stein and AlSb Toklast decided to stay in France, even
Speaker 1: though as an elderly Jewish couple with an enormous art collection,
Speaker 1: this was obviously very risky and it was not a
Speaker 1: decision that they came too easily. They fretted back and
Speaker 1: forth about it through much of nineteen and ninety Ultimately
Speaker 1: they stayed, and then they left Paris for the French countryside,
Speaker 1: where they had a house in Billin. A lot of
Speaker 1: people ask them why they stayed, because, I mean, really,
Speaker 1: that is a lot of risk factors for being in
Speaker 1: France during World War Two. Right that they have their age,
Speaker 1: the fact that they are gay, they have the huge
Speaker 1: art collection, like all of this together, and the answers
Speaker 1: that they gave were kind of like Gertrude Stein was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't want to travel and I'm picking about my food,
Speaker 1: so I mean, I see how it would be hard
Speaker 1: to leave French food behind. I do. But yeah, So
Speaker 1: a lot of accounts really gloss over how they made
Speaker 1: this work, and the answer is that it was largely
Speaker 1: through the protection of Bernard Faii, who was a high
Speaker 1: ranking and openly anti Semitic Vic government official. Quick recap
Speaker 1: if anyone needs a brush up on this part of
Speaker 1: World War Two. The vic government was installed after France
Speaker 1: fell to Nazi Germany. It collaborated with Germany for the
Speaker 1: rest of the war, and it's named after the town
Speaker 1: of v She, which effectively acted as the French capital.
Speaker 1: During World War Two. The Vichy government deported seventy five
Speaker 1: thousand Jews to Naxi extermination camps, and almost none of
Speaker 1: them survived. When Vissi Chief of State Martial Philippe banned
Speaker 1: secret societies in nineteen forty, Fai himself compiled a list
Speaker 1: of freemasons that led to six thousand imprisonments, nearly a
Speaker 1: thousand deportations, and more than five hundred deaths. It's not
Speaker 1: clear how much of fights work during the war Stein
Speaker 1: knew about. She probably did not know about this whole
Speaker 1: Freemason list. She certainly knew that Jewish people were being
Speaker 1: rounded up and deported, but she had been friends with
Speaker 1: Bernard Face since n and then later on Toklis would
Speaker 1: call him Stein's dearest friend. The reason that Stein and
Speaker 1: Toklas were left alone was that fight arranged it with
Speaker 1: Philip Patent. Stein had a connection with Patent as well.
Speaker 1: In n at Faii's suggestion, she translated a set of
Speaker 1: his anti Semitic speeches into English. She described herself as
Speaker 1: a propagandist for the Vichy government. Faia's protection of Stein
Speaker 1: and Toklas extended to their Paris apartment as well. While
Speaker 1: they were in Billenneure, the Gestapo broke into that apartment
Speaker 1: and they started packing up all the art for removal.
Speaker 1: A neighbor contacted the gendarme, who arrived on the scene
Speaker 1: and asked these Gestapo to show their requisition orders for
Speaker 1: the paintings. They didn't have orders, which bought a little time.
Speaker 1: Waw Fay arranged for the art to be left alone.
Speaker 1: His protection didn't really extend to the rest of the apartment, though,
Speaker 1: and some of Stein's and toklas other possessions were looted.
Speaker 1: After the war, Faii was put on trial for his
Speaker 1: collaboration with Nazi Germany, and Stein wrote a letter in
Speaker 1: his defense to add to all of this. In a
Speaker 1: May sixth, nineteen thirty four New York Times article, Gertrude
Speaker 1: Stein is quoted as saying, quote, I say that Hitler
Speaker 1: ought to have the Peace Prize because he's removing all
Speaker 1: elements of contest and struggle from Germany by driving out
Speaker 1: the Jews and the democratic and left elements. He's driving
Speaker 1: out everything that conduces to activity that means peace. The
Speaker 1: general consensus is that she probably meant this ironically, and
Speaker 1: given that Stein's entire literary career was about playing with
Speaker 1: and breaking the conventional rules of language, it was probably
Speaker 1: not intended to be taken at face value. But her
Speaker 1: later support of Patent and the Visi government and her
Speaker 1: defensive Faii make it hard to just dismiss that statement
Speaker 1: with oh, she was supposed to be ironic. There at
Speaker 1: the same time as all of this, I mean, she
Speaker 1: made steps that clearly seemed to support fascism and and
Speaker 1: the VC government. Stein and Toklas were also both huge
Speaker 1: supporters of Allied troops uh in both World War One
Speaker 1: and World War Two. They really took a lot of
Speaker 1: American g i s under their wing, acting almost as Godmother's,
Speaker 1: wrote them letters, hosted them in their home, and for
Speaker 1: Stein's part, she wrote a lot of laudatory poems and
Speaker 1: stories about Allied soldiers and friends for resistance fighters during
Speaker 1: World War Two. We don't know how Stein's views might
Speaker 1: have evolved after the horrors of the Holocaust became more
Speaker 1: fully known. Not long after the war, she was diagnosed
Speaker 1: with what turned out to be inoperable stomach cancer. She
Speaker 1: died during surgery on July at the age of seventy two.
Speaker 1: By the time she died, her body of work included novels,
Speaker 1: short stories, poems, plays, memoirs, and opera librettos. She is
Speaker 1: buried at Paarlscha Cemetery in Paris. After Stein's death, Alice
Speaker 1: by Tokalis converted to Catholicism, saying that she hoped that
Speaker 1: she would meet Gertrude again in heaven. She said that
Speaker 1: Stein's genius would have secured her a place there, even
Speaker 1: though she was a Jew. Toklis also spent the rest
Speaker 1: of her life publishing and promoting Stein's work. While Stein
Speaker 1: was alive. Totalist had never tried to compete with her
Speaker 1: in the world of literature, but after Stein's death, she
Speaker 1: published multiple works of her own. Two of these works
Speaker 1: were cookbooks. The Alice by Totalist cookbook blends recipes and memoir,
Speaker 1: giving glimpses of the two women's life together. It also
Speaker 1: includes a recipe for how shesh fudge, which she said
Speaker 1: was given to her by painter and performance artist Brian Geyson.
Speaker 1: The other cookbook is called Aromas and Flavors of Past
Speaker 1: and Present, a Book of Exquisite Cooking, which is a
Speaker 1: more straightforward recipe book. Yeah, that fudge recipe. Um, She
Speaker 1: she was pretty I don't I don't even know the
Speaker 1: best word. She was kind of just lighthearted about it.
Speaker 1: Later on she was like, oh, I just gave me
Speaker 1: that recipe. But then the fact that it was in
Speaker 1: the cook but sort of made her almost a cult
Speaker 1: figure within the counterculture movement in the sixties. Uh Tokalis
Speaker 1: also wrote an actual memoir called What Is Remembered, which
Speaker 1: came out in nineteen three, and it chronicles her nearly
Speaker 1: forty year relationship with Gertrude Stein, ending with Stein's death.
Speaker 1: Uh Alice by Toklis published work in magazines and newspapers
Speaker 1: as well. After Stein died, Totalis often struggled to make
Speaker 1: ends meet. Aside from Picasso's portrait of Stein, which was
Speaker 1: bequeathed to the Met, Totalist had inherited nearly the whole
Speaker 1: art collection, with Stein's nephew Allan as co beneficiary. The
Speaker 1: will included a provision that Totalist could sell pieces of
Speaker 1: the collection if she needed to, but she didn't really
Speaker 1: want to. She tried. I had to keep as much
Speaker 1: of the collection intact as she could, and she lived
Speaker 1: off the generosity of friends. By nineteen sixty, Alan Stein
Speaker 1: had died and his widow, Rubina Stein, removed the paintings
Speaker 1: from Toklis's apartment while she was away in Rome and
Speaker 1: had them put in a vault at Chase Manhattan Bank
Speaker 1: in Paris. Rubina Stein's argument was that the apartment was
Speaker 1: not a safe place for these paintings, and it is
Speaker 1: true that by this point a lot of these pieces
Speaker 1: had become very valuable and they were uninsured and being
Speaker 1: kept in a private residence without a lot of security.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, Rubina Stein took those paintings
Speaker 1: while Tokliss was away, and she was motivated in part
Speaker 1: by Tokaliss having sold some of the Picasso drawings, which
Speaker 1: she was allowed to do. So Toklist got back from
Speaker 1: Rome to find an apartment with bare walls, and she
Speaker 1: was ultimately evicted from that apartment because of her extended
Speaker 1: time away, so she was simultaneously without a home and
Speaker 1: without the option of selling off paintings to support herself.
Speaker 1: Toklis's last years were difficult. She had very little money,
Speaker 1: she was increasingly poor health in addition to having disabling
Speaker 1: cataracts and arthritis. She died on March seventh, nineteen sixty seven,
Speaker 1: at the age of eighty nine, and now she is
Speaker 1: buried at Perlasas Cemetery in Paris, next to Gertrude Stein.
Speaker 1: A year later, the rest of the art collection was
Speaker 1: sold to the Museum of Modern Art Syndicate, with a
Speaker 1: few pieces sold through art dealers. When Gertrude Stein died,
Speaker 1: she left her literary archives to the barneky Rare Books
Speaker 1: and Manuscripts Library at Yale University, and a lot of
Speaker 1: those papers were made public for the first time in
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties, which led to the publication of Baby
Speaker 1: Precious always shines. Selected love notes between Gertrude Stein and
Speaker 1: Alice by Tokalis, which was edited by Kay Turner and
Speaker 1: came out in nineteen nine. These notes are mostly from
Speaker 1: Stein and eight of them are from Tokalis. So to
Speaker 1: close out here is one of these notes, which was
Speaker 1: from Gertrude to Alice, quote, Dear, it is not queer
Speaker 1: that I love her here here in my heart, in
Speaker 1: me all through. That was a lovely way to end
Speaker 1: an episode that had an upsetting to Nazi territory. Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean uh, it becomes one of those engaging pieces
Speaker 1: of history right where it's a figure that a lot
Speaker 1: of people have looked up to and really enjoyed, and
Speaker 1: it is hard to face some of the negative parts
Speaker 1: such a person's life. And I knew that that um
Speaker 1: that they had basically been able to survive in France
Speaker 1: in the position that they were in because they were
Speaker 1: protected by this one Beec government official. I and that
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people can conceptualize and it
Speaker 1: doesn't create a ton of cognitive dissidence because it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: you needed to survive, this person had the ability to
Speaker 1: help you. You might accept their help, and it's like
Speaker 1: awesome from your safe armchair to be like, oh, I
Speaker 1: would never do that because that would violate my principles.
Speaker 1: But you don't actually know. But like when it got
Speaker 1: into oh, and then she was translating all of these
Speaker 1: anti Semitic speeches into English, and she made a number
Speaker 1: of statements that obviously, uh would seemed to be in
Speaker 1: support of fascism. That's uh. That's when I went and oh, man,
Speaker 1: I did not realize that you were going to ruin
Speaker 1: Gertude Stein for some people today. Do you have some
Speaker 1: listener mail that will or will not ruin something else? Uh?
Speaker 1: I do. It's not going to ruin anything. It is
Speaker 1: pretty brief. It is from Kathy. Cathy wrote in and said, hello, ladies,
Speaker 1: just wanted to drop you a quick line to thank
Speaker 1: you for your wonderful podcast. They go a long way
Speaker 1: toward presier preserving my sanity. During my commute to and
Speaker 1: from work, I just finished the Annalyster episode and wondered
Speaker 1: if you knew that HBO and the BBC are collaborating
Speaker 1: on a mini series about her, to be called Gentleman
Speaker 1: Jack airing in the fall. Fingers crossed that it's good,
Speaker 1: Thanks again for keeping me company and educating me Kathy. Yes,
Speaker 1: So I had meant to mention a couple of um
Speaker 1: TV appearances of and Lister in that episode, and it
Speaker 1: was running a little long, and it eventually slipped in
Speaker 1: my mind. There is uh a I think made for
Speaker 1: TV movie called The Secret Diaries of an Lister, which
Speaker 1: I haven't watched because I watched the trailer and it
Speaker 1: seemed too melodramatic for my personal tastes. UM. But when
Speaker 1: Gentleman Jack was initially announced, it was announced under the
Speaker 1: name Shibden Hall. So when I tried to UM confirmed
Speaker 1: because last year that it was announced, and I tried
Speaker 1: to confirm what the status of it was, I found
Speaker 1: nothing about it because I did not know that they
Speaker 1: had changed the theme to Gentleman Jack. So we may
Speaker 1: have some some and Lister mini series to watch uh
Speaker 1: in the reasonably near future. If you would like to
Speaker 1: write to us about this or any other podcast, We
Speaker 1: were at History Podcasts at how Stuff Works dot com,
Speaker 1: and we are also on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram
Speaker 1: and Pinterest at miss in History. If you come to
Speaker 1: our website, which is missed in History dot com, you
Speaker 1: will find show notes for all the episodes that Holly
Speaker 1: and I have worked on together, as well as a
Speaker 1: searchable archive of all of the episodes that we have
Speaker 1: ever done. Uh. You will get to see one of
Speaker 1: Gertrude Stein and Alice b told us as dogs, named
Speaker 1: Basket in the artwork for today's episode. It's a very
Speaker 1: cute dog. Most dogs are cute dogs. This is true,
Speaker 1: and you can subscribe to our podcast on Apple podcasts
Speaker 1: and Google Play, anywhere else that you might listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Se