Harry Falkenau
[1] He was also an early defender of Walt Whitman's poetry, taking a First Amendment stand against censorship soon after Leaves of Grass was declared obscene in 1882.
As a junior at Cornell University, Falkenau joined the national debate against censorship of Walter Whitman's poem, Leaves of Grass.
Harry Falkenau's argument for Leaves of Grass' inclusion was that the allegedly "unclean" in Whitman's work was an interpretation in the mind of the reader and not a characteristic intrinsic to the text.
Falkenau's defense occurred after United States Postmaster Anthony Comstock declared Whitman's work obscene under federal law.
The editors of Chicago's The Current responded to Falkenau's free speech protest, focusing on his "species of false logic ... that is, if certain indecencies have crept into the libraries of all scholars and maintained an obscure footing there, then the doors of every man's bookcase should open for whatever mistake or eccentric author may see fit to publish.
Addressing the Faculty and sixty-one graduates, he delivered his oration on "The Poetry of the Future as Foreshadowed in the Writings of Walt Whitman.
The room had been tastefully decorated with evergreens, during the afternoon, and the ladies of the society had provided flowers for the members and visitors.
[7]An example of the manner in which Falkenau's oratory was integrated with other arts at Cornell University was the Irving Literary Society's programme of April 1885.
)[8] In March 1885, Falkenau took the affirmative in the Irving debate, "Resolved, that the public educational system is not limited to the social and intellectual development of the people.
[10] Falkenau also provided violin music for Professor Corson's social soirees at his home in Collegetown, adjacent to Cornell's campus.
While still an undergraduate, Falkenau composed original works of college airs and a set of waltzes he named the "Kismet".
[16] Prior to settling in Chicago permanently, Falkenau received accolades in San Francisco (1890), when art patron August Hinrichs, proprietor of the Baldwin Theatre, awarded him a prize for the gavotte, op.
Franz Xaver Scharwenka (1850–1924) was a German pianist, composer, and founder a music school in New York City.
But there is one comfort in this sort of thing: The fellow whose torn skin is beginning to heal always joins in the laugh at the latest victim, so that there is room to hope that the mills of gods may grind so slowly in this case as to afford the ambitious critic time for showing the essential soundness and reliability of his work.
Oldfool" was The Bibliographer's Manual of English by William Thomas Lowndes (1864), which was the bookseller's guide to what was available on the market, antique or otherwise.
As the title page declares, "an Account of Rare, Curious, and Useful Books Published in or Relating to Great Britain and Ireland, from the Invention of Printing with Bibliographical and Critical Notices, Collations of the Rarer Articles, and the Prices at Which they Have Been Sold."
Esther was confirmed by Bernhard Felsenthal, Zion Temple in 1881; graduated from West Division High School in 1885.
In April 1895, Harry Falkenau, his brothers and his sister sold their family's five story, stone fronted building at 344 50th Street, New York City.
[21] Arthur and Louis Falkenau were both College of Engineering alumni, and Arthur went on to teach Mechanical Engineering at Cornell, and may have been the organizing alumnus behind the "Harry Falkenau Teaching Fellowship" currently administered by Cornell's College of Arts & Sciences.
