Otto Kahn

Otto Kahn PDF

Author: Theresa M. Collins

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2002-07-08

Total Pages: 398

ISBN-13: 1469620219

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In the early decades of the twentieth century, almost everyone in modern theater, literature, or film knew of Otto Kahn (1867-1934), and those who read the financial press or followed the news from Wall Street could scarcely have missed his name. A partner at one of America's premier private banks, he played a leading role in reorganizing the U.S. railroad system and supporting the Allied war effort in World War I. The German-Jewish Kahn was also perhaps the most influential patron of the arts the nation has ever seen: he helped finance the Metropolitan Opera, brought the Ballets Russes to America, and bankrolled such promising young talent as poet Hart Crane, the Provincetown Players, and the editors of the Little Review. This book is the full-scale biography Kahn has long deserved. Theresa Collins chronicles Kahn's life and times and reveals his singular place at the intersection of capitalism and modernity. Drawing on research in private correspondence, congressional testimony, and other sources, she paints a fascinating portrait of the figure whose seemingly incongruous identities as benefactor and banker inspired the New York Times to dub him the "Man of Velvet and Steel."

The Many Lives of Otto Kahn

The Many Lives of Otto Kahn PDF

Author: Mary Jane Phillips-Matz

Publisher: Pendragon Press

Published: 1984

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 9780918728364

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Here was a man who was both equipped and disposed to be the most considerable Maecenas in the history of our theater, wrote Alexander Woollcott. It is the man behind that legend whom Mary Jane Matz brings. to life in this spirited biography. Otto Kahn, The King of New York in the twenties, had virtually created the city's new Metropolitan Opera with his enormous energy and financial backing. He was responsible for introducing Stanislavski, Nijinski, the Abbey Players, the Moscow Art Theater, and practically every other important personage and event in the most vigorous era of American theatrical history. He subsidized, sponsored, and had close relationships with Toscanini, Caruso, Chaliapin, Pavlova, Pirandello, Eugene O'Neill, Paul Robeson, Grace Moore, and hundreds of other artists whose names are now part of that history. This was the Otto Kahn whose fame lives on today-the man who was an activating force in American opera and theater for more than two decades. But there was another Otto Kahn, now less well known, who was more than a theatrical patron. The other Otto Kahn had amassed a banking fortune through his perspicuity and integrity in the era of unbridled Big Business, and had gone on to win the respect of the nation with his political, economic, and humanitarian activities in the First World War and its boom-and-bust aftermath. That Otto Kahn, a partner in the banking firm of Kuhn, Loeb, was often accused of being a socialist.

High Finance

High Finance PDF

Author: Otto H. Kahn

Publisher: DigiCat

Published: 2022-11-21

Total Pages: 31

ISBN-13:

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"High Finance" is a speech about the principles, mistakes, and trends of financial markets given in 1916. The author of this book, Otto H. Kahn, addresses the need for professionals in the Finance Industry to be just that: professional. He urges those in the field to act with morality and in an ethical fashion. He recognizes that the positive transformation of the character of financial professionals will be essential in restoring the image and worth of private finance in the eyes of the public.

Modern Architecture

Modern Architecture PDF

Author: Frank Lloyd Wright

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2021-07-13

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 0691232539

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Modern Architecture is a landmark text--the first book in which America's greatest architect put forth the principles of a fundamentally new, organic architecture that would reject the trappings of historical styles while avoiding the geometric abstraction of the machine aesthetic advocated by contemporary European modernists. One of the most important documents in the development of modern architecture and the career of Frank Lloyd Wright, Modern Architecture is a provocative and profound polemic against America's architectural eclecticism, commercial skyscrapers, and misguided urban planning. The book is also a work of savvy self-promotion, in which Wright not only advanced his own concept of an organic architecture but also framed it as having anticipated by decades--and bettered--what he saw as the reductive modernism of his European counterparts. Based on the 1931 original, for which Wright supplied the cover illustration, this beautiful edition includes a new introduction that puts Modern Architecture in its broader architectural, historical, and intellectual context for the first time. The subjects of these lively lectures--from "Machinery, Materials and Men" to "The Tyranny of the Skyscraper" and "The City"--move from a general statement of the conditions of modern culture to particular applications in the fields of architecture and urbanism at ever broadening scales. Wright's vision in Modern Architecture is ultimately to equate the truly modern with romanticism, imagination, beauty, and nature--all of which he connects with an underlying sense of American democratic freedom and individualism.

The KAHNS of Fifth Avenue

The KAHNS of Fifth Avenue PDF

Author: Iain Cameron Williams

Publisher: Iain Cameron Williams

Published: 2022-02-16

Total Pages: 730

ISBN-13: 9781916146587

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The KAHNS of Fifth Avenue: the Crazy Rhythm of Otto Hermann Kahn and the Kahn Family It was a time when money was plentiful. Dreams were hung on the wind. Those that had talent flaunted it, those that hadn't bought it. Alcohol danced to the rhythm of Prohibition. This was the Roaring Twenties and boy did they roar as no decade had done before. Jazz was all the rage. In New York City, at the center of the revelry was the Kahn family; banker and philanthropist Otto Hermann Kahn, his beautiful wife Addie, and their four spirited offspring, Maud, Margaret, Gilbert, and Roger. Theirs was a family of extravagance. For them, the 1920s inspired more dreams than they could have dared to imagine. With the gaiety came a price tag, accompanied by a soundtrack of jazz ... so much jazz. Merchant banker Otto Hermann Kahn was one of America's most generous patrons of the arts; he was also chairman of the Metropolitan Opera Company and a connoisseur of Europe's avant-garde. When his teenage son, Roger, took up the baton as a bandleader, Otto and Addie hit the roof. Stories of the family's subsequent bickering and infighting graced the headlines for months. From that moment onwards, the Kahns became public property. Throughout the 1920s and '30s, their scandals, lawsuits, marriages, divorces, and deaths were splashed across the tabloids. So what really went on behind the closed doors of the Kahns' magnificent mansions? Where did all their wealth come from, and where did it go? And did Otto Kahn purchase a secret stash of stocks using an alias? These questions and more are answered in The KAHNS of Fifth Avenue: the true story of a family that dared to dream big. www.thekahnsoffifthavenue.com

Oheka Castle

Oheka Castle PDF

Author: Joan Cergol

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 130

ISBN-13: 0738592420

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Constructed in 1919, OHEKA CASTLE, Long Island's largest Gold Coast mansion, was once described by the New York Times as the finest country house in America. Enrico Caruso sang in its grand ballroom, and Arturo Toscanini lifted his baton to its soaring ceiling. Appearing as the mysterious mountaintop castle in the opening scenes of the film classic Citizen Kane, its majestic edifice and meticulous grounds continue to dazzle the screens of major Hollywood movies and television shows. It was a playground for the rich and famous of the Gilded Era, when heads of state, royalty, stage and screen stars, great comedians, and bohemians alike cavorted about its great halls. In subsequent years, it became home to an eclectic array of occupants, including New York City sanitation workers, World War II radio trainees, military school cadets, and eventually vandals and squatters. After its abandonment and descent into unrecognizable ruin, a Long Island developer with an appreciation for history reversed the adverse effects of time and neglect, transforming OHEKA into the largest restored home in America.