PressAspen Magazine, Summer 2005 Views Ideas Leading the Way by Daniel Shaw In July, a diverse group of world luminaries comes to the Aspen Institute's Aspen Ideas Festival. Among them is historian BARBARA GOLDSMITH, who is leading a talk on women and leadership. DANIEL SHAW tells us why she is the right woman for the job. In 1987, Barbara Goldsmith had a really good idea. An executive-committee member of the PEN American Center and one of America's foremost journalists and social historians, she created and began underwriting an award to spotlight dissident writers enduring persecution under oppressive regimes. To date, 28 of those recipients have been released from prison within four months of receiving the PEN/ That initiative and its profound impact alone would have rendered Goldsmith worthy of inclusion in the Aspen Institute's inaugural Aspen Ideas Festival, July 5-10. In this conference, also presented by "The Atlantic" magazine, Goldsmith and ABC news and 20/ Mixing it up is something the Aspen Institute is determined to do. With the goal of creating "an exciting, unique opportunity for a broad and diverse group of participants to engage in intellectual activities," the Institute is presenting tutorials, seminars, and conversations on topics such as global economics, health and bioscience, culture and society, leadership and the state of the environment. Attendees include Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, Human Genome Sciences founder William Haseltine, MSNBC host Chris Matthews, Nobel Prize-winner Toni Morrison, United Nations under-secretary-general and special representative Olara Otunnu, Harvard University president Lawrence Summers, and "U.S. News and World Report" editor in chief Mortimer Zuckerman. As a founding committee member of the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, Goldsmith has seen firsthand the benefits of bringing different fields of knowledge to one setting. "It's amazing how an economist can learn from an artist," she says. Yet in many ways, the Aspen Ideas Festival is a celebration of individualism-- after all, a groundswell of ideas starts with one person. "People say individuals cannot make a difference, but I agree with Margaret Mead, who said, 'Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed individuals can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has," says Goldsmith. The festival, she notes, comes at a critical juncture for America: We now have the technology, power, and money to implement ideas in ways never before possible. If there is a common thread linking Ideas Festival participants, it is the undeniable influence each of them-- from Colin Powell to Jane Goodall-- has had on our society and the way we view and live in the world. As a journalist, social commentator, and historian, Goldsmith has done her share with the writing. From "Little Gloria . . . Happy at Last", which tells the story of the custody battle over Gloria Vanderbilt, to her latest offering, "Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie", her books have been best-sellers. She manages to popularize history-- to bring it alive-- without sacrificing substance. "Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull" is on its way to becoming a major movie, and her articles for "The New Yorker" and other magazine always offer a fresh take on our culture. While her vivid accounts have moved, entertained, and informed millions, her myriad philanthropic and volunteer efforts to promote and protect human rights have directly affected lives worldwide. The New York Public Library, where she is an executive-committee member, named its Barbara Goldsmith Conservation and Preservation Divisions after she came up with another inspired idea. Goldsmith, an elected member of the American Academy for Arts & Sciences, became increasingly concerned that our era's books were surviving only about 30 years-- as opposed to the 300 years they'd lasted before the industrial revolution changed the publishing process from acid-free paper to acidic paper. She organized the most influential writers of our time to launch a campaign for the more permanent acid-free paper, and they won a $20 million governmental grant to make it happen. In 1989, Goldsmith received a signed declaration from Congress and commitments from every major publisher in the nation and 2,500 writers-- all agreeing to use only acid-free paper. "Now, that was a great idea," she says without a trace of boasting. "Anybody can have a great idea if they go for it. You have to play up great ideas, and I believe this conference will. Marie Curie was a genius. I'm no genius, but I've had a few good ideas."  Barbara Goldsmith Conservation and Preservation Labortory at the Bobst Library at New York University.  An Author With a Passion for Philanthropy Lunch at the Four Seasons THE NEW YORK SUN BY PRANAY GUPTE February 21, 2006 Barbara Goldsmith says she was born to share. "It was inculcated in me early that if you were privileged, then you're obliged to give back to society," the author of best sellers and historian said yesterday."My parents made it clear to my sister Ann and me that it was important to think about other people, and not just yourself." She took their exhortation seriously. Almost as much as her notable books - "Little Gloria ... Happy at Last," "Johnson v. Johnson," "Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie," and "Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism, and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull" - are celebrated, Ms. Goldsmith is herself celebrated for her philanthropy. "I believe in saving people and saving books," she said. The people she "saves" are involved with books. Nearly 20 years ago, Ms. Goldsmith conceived the "PEN/ The books that Ms. Goldsmith "saves" are to be found in myriad places, including the Goldsmith Conservation and Preservation Laboratories at the New York Public Library. She also has donated the preservation and conservation departments to New York University, and she has gifted a state-of-the-art rare-books library to the American Academy in Rome and another one to her alma mater, Wellesley College. Ask her to elaborate on her philanthropy, and Ms. Goldsmith demurs. "I've been very fortunate to find the trip joyful - full of love and good work," she said. "What more could one ask?" One could, of course, ask her about the wellspring of her sensibility. The response is to be anticipated: her parents. Ms. Goldsmith's father, Joseph I. Lubin, was born as the youngest of eight children in a Lower East Side tenement. He established himself as an accountant and lawyer, rising to become board chairman of Pepsi-Cola at 40. He endowed Pace University's Lubin School of Business and Yeshiva University's Albert Einstein College of Medicine.Along with John D. Rockefeller II, he donated millions for the purchase of stockyards along the East River in 1946 so a headquarters for the United Nations could be built. "His was an authentic rags-to-riches story," Ms. Goldsmith said. Her mother hailed from more fortunate circumstances than Lubin. Evelyn Cronson's father, Reuben, was chief of surgery at New York's Presbyterian Hospital. Active in social work, Evelyn helped retarded children; during World War II, she prepared bandages for troops - and she taught her younger daughter the technique. "She also taught me how important it was to have a happy family life," Ms. Goldsmith said."She would say,'Be careful - you don't want a scrapbook full of honors, but no life.' One of my mother's regrets was that her father, a doctor, never let her be a doctor herself." That would have been one of the few regrets in an otherwise fulfilling life. Evelyn Cronson Lubin lived to see Barbara Goldsmith develop into an acclaimed writer - one of the most successful practitioners of what came to be called "The New Journalism" - and an Emmy-winning documentary maker. She lived to see Ms.Goldsmith's three adult children - Alice, John, and Andrew - get married and have children. She did not live to see Ms. Goldsmith's six grandchildren. Neither did she live to see her daughter organize 2,500 of America's most influential writers to insist that they be published on cost-comparable permanent paper, which lasts 300 years instead of deteriorating in 30. Ms. Goldsmith secured a $20 million grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities for paper preservation. "This will potentially save billions of future dollars that might otherwise be spent on preservation," Ms. Goldsmith said. Her work on technical and business matters relating to publishing might suggest that Ms. Goldsmith had commerce in her DNA. Not so, she said. "No business was ever discussed in our house," Ms. Goldsmith said. "What was discussed was history.We were given quizzes at the dining table. My father was an American-history buff. We had a large library. I read everything that I could get my hands on - Dumas, Thackeray, Proust, Dickens." It was quite possibly such reading that spawned in her a desire to write. When she was nine, Ms. Goldsmith created a character named Jackson the Jester, and she read her composition aloud before her class at Mayflower Grammar School in New Rochelle. When she finished, she noticed that several of her fellow students were cry ing because of the pathos in the story. "That was a 10-minute recitation - 10 minutes that changed my life," Ms. Goldsmith said. She vowed to become a writer. While she was at high school,she worked summers for Town & Country magazine. Later, she worked for the New Yorker. She gained early notice for her profiles of Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Danny Kaye, and Deborah Kerr. Ms. Goldsmith also interviewed and wrote about Picasso, Marcel Breuer, and I.M. Pei, among other artists and architects. "I've always been curious - I like to peel the onion," Ms. Goldsmith said. "If something doesn't make sense, then you don't take it at face value," she said. That could well be a tutorial for today's crop of young writers. But Ms. Goldsmith said the term "The New Journalism" is a misnomer. "There's good journalism and bad - that's it," she said. What she frets about is that there isn't enough of the observation, detail, intuitiveness, and understanding of people in much of today's reporting and writing. "And where has the passion gone?" she asked. "It's so important to have a sense of adventure." A reporter, who recalled reading her magazine profiles and early books as a young man, asked Ms. Goldsmith how she saw her extraordinary life in the privacy of her mind. She replied: "The joy has been in the doing."  Barbara Goldsmith in the preservation lab at the New York Public Library with a parchment page from a Renaissance book depicting the Last Judgement. The inks have deteriorated, and the gold is tarnished. Paper They're Printed On By Eleanor Blau The New York Times "It started out as an avocation, and it became really an obsession." Barbara Goldsmith, an author and social historian, was speaking of her 15-year crusade against acidic paper, a self-destructive menace to the written word that has caused millions of books to crumble to dust. Ms. Goldsmith, a trustee of the New York Public Library, endowed the lab where the library preserves its wares, saving many volumes on microfilm and using scientific alchemy to slow the deterioration of a special few. But her efforts have reached far beyond the library here. "I think she put the issue squarely on the map," said Paul LeClerc, the president of the New York Public Library. She led "a turnaround both within the publishing community and the Federal Government," he said, "a movement away from paper that ultimately disintegrates and toward a paper that is going to be around for hundreds of years." Hardcover trade books are now routinely printed on acid-free paper, and Federal agencies are required to use permanent paper for publications of "enduring value." But the growing movement to recycle paper could reverse the acid-free successes, since recycling some kinds of paper requires the use of acid. So Ms. Goldsmith is still at work. She dates her obsession to 1979, when she was doing research for "Little Gloria . . . Happy at Last," her best seller about the custody struggle for Gloria Vanderbilt. "I couldn't understand why some old documents were in wonderful condition and others I couldn't even get to the Xerox machine before they turned to dust," she recalled. The problem, she learned, was immense: millions of books and periodicals published since the 1850's-- filling more than 30 miles of shelves in the New York library alone-- were disintegrating. Their pages were made of wood pulp, a type of paper developed in the 1850's when paper made from cotton rag and linen rag became scarce. Unfortunately, lignin in wood pulp oxidizes and turns brown. A chemical added to keep ink from feathering-- alum-rosin sizing-- also discolors the paper. And the matter grows worse over time as the alum combines with sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere. American librarians were not generally aware that the paper was falling apart rapidly until the 1950's, when William J. Barrow, an archivist, sounded the alarm. By 1960, he had helped create a wood-pulp process using alkaline chemicals. But 20 years later, most mills were still making acidic paper. "What had happened was that the American Library Association, every preservation department, all knew about this and it came up at every conference," Ms. Goldsmith said. "It was the converted preaching to the converted." When she asked one library official why no one had spread the word, she recalled, he said: "'This is not a sexy issue. It's such a dry issue.' I said, 'No, it's not!' I was just on fire with it." She still sounds on fire with it. Ms. Goldsmith, who has degrees from Wellesley College (1953) and Columbia University (1957), and whose works include "Johnson v. Johnson" (1987), about the contested will of the heir to the pharmaceutical fortune, once said she wrote books out of a passion to "see that our society straightens out." Her passion for the acid-free paper crusade was evident as she recounted her early efforts during an interview in her Park Avenue apartment. "It didn't go very fast at first because I was out there sort of by myself and nobody believed it," she said. But by 1989, she was able to gather dozens of authors and publishers at the library to declare that form now on they would use only acid-free paper, if available, "for all first printings of quality hardcover trade books in order to preserve the printed word and safeguard out cultural heritage for future generations." Ms. Goldsmith went to Washington with writers who included Kurt Vonnegut Jr. "We were very successful in getting legislation that all Governmental printing of any quality would be done on acid-free paper," she said. "Then it was sort of like a house of cards because that gave a lot of the mills enormous incentive to convert to acid-free paper." Another incentive was the price of wood pulp, which rose in the mid-1980's, encouraging American mills to substitute calcium carbonate-- something that had been done in Europe a decade earlier, Ms Goldsmith said. These days, about 75 percent of fine paper (not including newsprint) used for printing and writing in the United States is alkaline, said Ellen McCrady, the president of Abbey Publications, which issues newsletters about paper. In 1985 the figure was about 25 percent. Ms. Goldsmith's next goal is to educate recyclers about the acid-paper problem; in May there will be a conference at the library dedicated to that issue. Ms. Goldsmith said she thought many recyclers did not understand that the acid they sometimes add in recycling pollutes. "They think they're doing something wonderful, they're saving the forests," she said. "But it's a Catch-22, because if you're not cutting down trees but you're polluting the streams and air, you don't want to do that, either." While the crusade continues, the Barbara Goldsmith Preservation Laboratory pursues its work deep in the library's basement, where bouldered walls reveal remnants of the reservoir that stood on the site more than a century ago. She endowed the lab in 1988 with $1 million from a foundation that bears her name-- money inherited from her father, Joseph I. Lubin, the son of a poor immigrant family who went on to become board chairman of the Pepsi-Cola Company. Since then, the lab has received two Federal grants of $2 million each. Most of its work consists of microfilming. "I'm not against microfilming," Ms. Goldsmith mused. "It's just that I don't want the book to become an artifact. I don't want to put my grandchild on my knee and read her 'Wind in the Willows' at some computer screen." BARBARA GOLDSMITH'S TELEVISION APPEARANCE ON CONNIE MARTINSON TALKS BOOKS Barbara Goldsmith has written "Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie"(Norton $23.95). It is part of the James Atlas series entitled "Great Discoveries". Despite the limits of book size, 233 pages, it is a superb book that makes Marie Curie, the first woman to be awarded two Nobel prizes, come alive. She was born in Warsaw in 1867 where her name was Marya Sklodowski. Her father was a Professor who took over the raising of his children, four daughters and a son, when her mother, Bronislava, who was ill for many years, died in 1878. Marya was always the student with the intent to go to Paris and study at the Sorbonne, but first it was her elder sister Bronya's turn to go to Paris. During that time, Marya worked as a governess for a well to do family. The family did not consider her background good enough to marry their son. She was heartbroken and determined never to fall in love again. In 1891, Marya became Marie when she moved to Paris and began her studies at the Sorbonne. She was first in the science exam and took a second in mathematics. It was then that she met the man who would be the key to her experiments , discoveries, and her love, Pierre Curie. Pierre and his brother, Jacques, had discovered the electrical charge generated by a piezoelectric quartz which today is seen in sonar, ultrasound, mobile phones, etc. Pierre was as unique as Marie, it was as if they were two pieces of a puzzle that completed the other. They were married on July 26, 1895. Marie continued her work on the magnetic properties of steel which would win the Gegner Prize from the Academy of Sciences. In 1897 she gave birth to her daughter, Irene, who would also win a Nobel Prize in 1935 for her work in artificial radioactivity. Barbara Goldsmith was given unlimited access to the Curie papers by the grand daughter, Helene Langevin-Joliot. Goldsmith has made the Curie scientific discoveries understandable to the lay person. Marie becomes a breathing human who could be jealous that Gerhard Carl Schmidt beat the Curies by three weeks in publishing his findings on the radioactivity of thorium. It made her even more determined to discover a new element. Her first was "Polonium" and her second was "Radium". In November 1903. the Curies received the notice that they had won the Nobel Prize. They did not attend as Marie was suffering from the death of her father and a miscarriage. Throughout her life, Marie, in her obsessive behavior, would take to her bed in a depressive state. In 1905, her daughter, Eve, was born. Radium became the hot new asset to commercial use , everything from health tonics to teeth whitener to that day's answer to viagra. The family could afford to take vacations. Pierre was a member of the Scientific Academy. But Radium was taking its physical payment from Pierre with his bone deterioration that caused him to fall in the street as he was pushed down by a run away horse. He slipped and the wagon ran over him and crushed his skull. He was forty-nine. And for Marie, her world collapsed. She could give his lectures but there was no light in her world for five years. In 1910 she became involved with a younger married scientist, Paul Langevin, whose wife eked out the ultimate revenge by publishing Marie's love letters to Paul. Because of this disgrace, the Nobel Prize was awarded to her but they asked her not to attend. It goes without saying that Marie was the victim of female discrimination throughout her life. She also refutes the inane announcements by the president of Harvard concerning women and the sciences. This book is a "must" for gift giving, easy to read, informative on scientific discoveries and human in the story of one woman's life. Praise for Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie to be published November 2004 "History has treated Marie Curie as a mysterious genius, as if she sprang full-blown from the head of Zeus—or perhaps her husband. Barbara Goldsmith gives us a flesh-and-blood woman whose life and work will inspire our own. Marie Curie was the brilliant discoverer of radium and the radioactivity crucial to modern science. Barbara Goldsmith is the brilliant discoverer of Marie Curie." -- Gloria Steinem “Barbara Goldsmith has done the near impossible in “Obsessive Genius”, her remarkably moving and surprising biography of Madame Curie. She never loses the Luddite reader like me in a hopeless morass of scientific details. Instead, she makes the scientific information sparkle with the same clarity that matches her telling the accomplishments and strange celebrity of the woman who founded modern radioactivity. Goldsmith makes me understand the very foundations of modern science in a way I never have before. This is a book to buy for yourself and then buy ten more copies to give as presents to grateful friends.” -- John Guare “Great lives in science are all about passion and curiosity. Marie Curie, the Polish-born discoverer of radium, had both in grand measure. But down the road she helped open-up nuclear energy, which meant atomic bombs, and put Curie center stage during one of the great turning points in scientific history. Barbara Goldsmith has uniquely captured the woman and her science.” -- Thomas Powers, author of Heisenberg’s War “An uncommonly heartfelt and empathic profile of a scientific hero.” -- Timothy Ferris, author of, Coming of Age in the Milky Way and Seeing in the Dark “Barbara Goldsmith has written a superb study of a fascinating and historically important woman whose life is a great deal more interesting than the myth it inspired. Obsessive Genius is an obsessive read.” -- Gay Talese “Obsessive Genius vividly portrays the powerful personal story of privation, sacrifice, triumph, and reward of one of the greatest scientists of the Twentieth Century, Marie Curie. It is a fast-paced exciting tale of scientific adventure which I read in one sitting. Barbara Goldsmith makes an important addition to her growing body of work on the life and accomplishments of women who have shaped our history and our lives.” -- Dr. William Haseltine, Ph.D., Chairman and CEO, Human Genome Sciences, Inc. Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism, and the Scandalous Victoria WoodhullLiz Smith The New York Post – March 23, 2004 OTHER POWERS SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE For some time, the writer Barbara Goldsmith and I have been talking about Nicole Kidman starring in the movie version of her national best seller, Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull. Nicole would indeed be a natural to play the high priestess of free love, a woman who ran for president back in 1972 and fought the good fight for woman’s rights. The very first option of Goldsmith’s book came from Tom Cruise for Nicole, but that expired along with the Cruise-Kidman marriage. Now comes word that film right have been bought by Steven Soderbergh and George Cloony’s Section 8 production company. Soderbergh is to direct and “Seabiscuit” producer Kathleen Kennedy will produce, with a screenplay by Naomi Foner. The latter wrote Running on Empty and Violets Are Blue, and is the mother of those hot Hollywood kids, Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal. The even better news it that Nicole, who remains close to old friend Clooney, is still interested in starring. She told the author, “Tell them they better hurry up!” It is said Nicole also suggested her Aussie pal Naomi Watts to play Victoria Woodhull’s free-wheeling sister, Tennessee, a courtesan who learned the tricks of the stock market in Commodore Vanderbilt’s bed. When this story of a violent, corrupt America struggling against women’s rights was first published, I wrote it was a great book, destined to become a great movie. So who knows, maybe I’m clairvoyant like Victoria! Little Gloria...Happy At LastFrom imdb.com: The Internet Movie Database Little Gloria…Happy at Last (1982) (TV) Directed by: Waris Hussein Writing credits: Barbara Goldsmith (book)and William Hanley Honors: Two Emmy Awards Genre: Drama User Comments ABSORBING DRAMA! "Beautifully made adaptation of Barbara Goldsmith’s Best-seller book, about the sensational custody battle of 10 year old Gloria Vanderbilt, that took place in 1934. Great cast, with Angela Lansbury and Bette Davis taking the acting honors. Detailed and very real, with a nice period flavor. This is a true but ultimately sad story. One of the best TV mini-series ever made." Cast overview (first billed only) Martin Balsam......Nathan Burkan Bette Davis......…Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt Michael Gross:......Gilchrist Lucy Gutteridge:......Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt John Hillerman:......Maury Paul Barnard Hughes:......Justice John Francis Carew Glynis Johns:......Laura Fitzpatrick Morgan Angela Lansbury:......Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Rosalyn Landow:......Thelma Morgan Converse Joseph Maher:......Smythe Christopher Plummer:......Reggie Vanderbilt Ken Pogue:......Judge James Aloycious Maureen Stapleton:......Nurse Emma Kieslich Leueen Willoughby:......Consuelo Morgan Jennifer Dundas:......Little Gloria Color: Color Sound Mix: Mono |
|
