Figure 1.--"Blossoms in the Dust" was an early technicolor production. Most movies at the time were shot in black and white. The film is based on the an actual person--Edna Gladney. Her sister commited suicide when she learned that she was a foundling from an illegitimate birth. Mrs Gladney worked to change the system. This is Sammy, the Gladney's own child who was tragically killed at age 5. He wears a blue velvet knickers suit with black stockings and an Eton collar with a floppy bow.

After losing her only child, a woman opens a home for orphaned children in an effort to place them with families. Her primary concern is foundling children born out of wedlock. Many perspective parents refused to consider adopting children born out of wedlock. The children except for Tony have very small parts, mostly being seen in the background. They are accurately depicted in early 20th century clothing. The heroin's son was pictured briefly at about 3 years old, dressed in a blue velvet knicker suit. Saddly the boy is killed in an accident. The film was an early technicolor production. Most movies at the time were shot in black and white. The film is based on the an actual person--Edna Gladney. Her sister commited suicide when she learned that she was a foundling from an illegitimate birth. Americ and other countries kept records on a person's background. Deficiencies such an illegitimate birth would followone throughout their life, appearing not only on birth certificates but documebts like passports. This complicated all kibds of life actions such as college admissions, marriages, jobs, ect. While certainly a tearjerker, the film effectively addressed a serious problem that made it difficult for children to be adopted and then stigmatized them all their adult lives. Mrs. Gladney after losing her only child has to learn to give up the children she cares for. The most difficult was the crippled boy Tony that she nurses back to health.

Filmography

The film was an early technicolor production. Most movies at the time were shot in black and white. Probably there would have been more color films at the time had America not the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought America into World War II. The film was directed by Mervyn LeRoy. While certainly a tearjerker, the film effectively addressed a serious problem that made it difficult for children to be adopted and then stigmatized them all their adult lives. It is an example of a studio "issue picture" of the day. The title "Blossoms in the Dust", reflects the image of little children playing in the Texan dust. This probably resonates more with Americans of the Dust Bowl era. The production was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Actress and won for the technicolour interior decoration.

Setting

The movie begins in Wisconsin and then shifts to Texas. It is set in the early 20th century.

Cast

The film is notable because it was the first pairing of Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon. Their most famous film was the World War II film about how average Britains withstood the Blitz -- "Mrs. Miniver' (1942). I have little information about the children in the production. The Gladney's own boy Sammy was played by Richard Nichols. The foundling boy Tony is nicely played by Pat Barker. His performance is perhaps too sweet for modern movie goers, but would have not been seen that way by less jaded 1941 movie goers. I'm not sure, but he may have been the same little boy in "Mrs. Miiver".

Edna Gladney

The film is based on the an actual person -- Edna Gladney. She was the well-known Fort Worth heroine who played an important role in bettering the lives of orphan children and getting them adopted into good homes. Edna Gladney was born in 1886 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Edna's father died when she was a child, and in 1903 her mother sent her to live with her aunt and uncle in Ft. Worth, Texas. The film appears to redo her early history and depicts her sister Charlotte commiting suicide when her upcoming marriage was ruined because her perspective in-laws learned that she was a foundling from an illegitimate birth. Charlotte herself had not known. America and other countries kept records on a person's background. Deficiencies such an illegitimate birth would followone throughout their life, appearing not only on birth certificates but documebts like passports. This complicated all kinds of life actions such as college admissions, marriages, jobs, ect.Edna married Sam Gladney in 1906. Mr. Gladney prospered from his milling company, located in Wolfe City, Texas, which manufactured Gladiola brand flour. Edna Gladney crusaded to clean up her county's poor farm. She was particularly saddened by the treatment of the children and arranged to have them transferred to a reverend Morris's Children's Home and Aid Society. By 1910 she had joined the society's board of directors and dedicated herself to caring for homeless and underprivileged children. Mrs. Gladney studied child welfare and settlement work in New York and Chicago. returning to Texas, she established a free day nursery in Sherman, Texas, for the children of poor working families. The nursery was financed from her own pocket and from donations to collection boxes that she placed in local businesses. After Mr. Gladney's business failed, the couple moved to Fort Worth in 1924, where he rebuilt his fortunes. Edna devoted her time to the Texas Children's Home and Aid Society, and by 1927 she had been named superintendent. She had no children of her own, and Mr. Gladney died in 1935. The welfare of unwanted children became her life work. She continued Rev. Morris's original work of placing abandoned children with adoptive families and expanded the society's activities to include the care of unmarried mothers and an adoption service for their babies. She successfully lobbied the Texas legislature to have the word "illegitimate" kept off birth certificates and urged the passage of legislation to give adopted children the same rights as other children. As a result of her efforts the state of Texas began the policy of issuing second birth certificates in the names of adoptive parents. She placed more than 10,000 babies with adoptive parents during her career and continued as director of the home until illness forced her into semiretirement in 1960. She remained an adviser until her death on October 2, 1961. [The Handbook of Texas Online] Mrs Gladney was best known for here statement, "There is no such thing as an illegitimate child, only illegitimate parents." She went on to found the famed Texas Children's Home and Aid Society. Edna Kahly was raised in Wisconsin but moved to Texas with her husband after Sam had lost his business and after their only child, Sammy, had been killed in an accident. In 1927 Edna became the superintendent of the Children's Home in Fort Worth, working at first without any salary because of the precarious financial situation that beset this charity. She was a masterful fund-raiser and built the home into a famous institution for orphan children. She also worked tirelessly to get the law governing birth certificates changed so that children would not be forever branded with the label of illegitimacy on their most important identifying document. The children's home was renamed for Gladney in 1952 in honor of her 25th year as superintendent. Edna retired in 1960 and died a year later from complications arising from diabetes.

Race Issues

Some Afro-American viewers will be uncomfortable with the depictions of Blacks in this film. The Blacks shown are depicted in positive, but stereotypical roles. Their English is strongl dialect. This raises several issues. We believe that many Blacks at the time depicted did speak that way. There were of course well educated blacks who did not, but many blacks did. This presents a problem for Hollywood, does it accurately give Black actors speaking roles in dialect or does it avoid offending Black movie goers. Of course in 1941 we doubt that producers had this concern. An issue we wonder about is if servants working in the home of educated Whites would not have gradually began to speak more correct English, especially English in which the subject and verb agree. Another issue anout the film is that viewing it you would have no idea that Texas had very strong segragatonist laws. Schools and hospitals were segregated. Mrs. Gladney is depicted as working with both Black and White (but not Hispanic) children. We are not sure to what extent she helped place White children and how she dealt with Jum Crow Segregationist laws. Texas had Jim Crow laws which required racial segregation, and there was widespread support for this policy among the majority white population. A HBC reader writes, "Perhaps as a privately funded service, the Society was not affected by the segregation laws." Segregationist laws varied from state to state, but I believe they affected privately owned as well as public facilities. Racial (and ethnic) dialect and stereotypical occupations as found in vintage film and television productions are controversial. A Texas reader writes, "It is very likely that the dialect heard in "Blossoms in the Dust" accurately reflected the ordinary speech of African-Americans in the film's setting. Most people, even when they relocate far from where they grew up, retain at least a trace of their original accent. The speech of African-Americans in the Deep South reflects the regional dialect, as well as for many the lack of educational attainment imposed by social and economic circumstances of their time and place. To some extent the dominant Anglo community also expected such speech patterns. African-Americans who violated these anticipated social norms might find themselves harassed or even the victims of violence for overstepping their bounds. Many African-Americans kept the speech patterns and dialect they'd grown up with. They were comfortable with their way of speaking, and there was no real incentive to change. Variables such as occupation, our peers, encouragement to improve diction, and opportunities to learn, however, influence how we speak. The producers of the film would not have erred by including some dialect which some today regard as racist. Many in the audience perhaps anticipated such dialogue. Filmmakers sometimes lag behind the times in choice of costumes, though, and the same could be true of dialect.

Figure 2.- This is Tony, the little orphan boy to whom Mrs. Gladney became so attached. He wears a kneepants sailr suit with long stockings.

Plot

The issue of foundling children is presented when Edna's adopted sister Charlotte kills herself at the beginning of the film. Then we see her own little boy surrounded by his toys at Christmas (figure 1). Sammy dies in a tragic accident. After losing her child Mrs. Gladney unable to have another child, throws herself into the social whirl of Fprt Worth. Eventually she opens a home for orphaned children in an effort to place them with families. Her primary concern is foundling children born out of wedlock. Many perspective parents refused to consider adopting children born out of wedlock. The children except for Tony have very small parts, mostly being seen in the background. Mrs. Gladney after losing her only child has to learn to give up the children she cares for. The most difficult was the crippled boy Tony that she nurses back to health. He becomes the child on whom much of the action focuses. Tony has a weak leg and must wear a brace until he is about six, at which point he is strong enough to walk without it. As Tony is being cared for by "Auntie Edna," she becomes attached to him and treats him as if he were her own lost son. Probably the most emotional element in the film is the scene where Edna realizes that for the boy's own good she must give him up for adoption. Here we see Tony after he has shed his leg brace and, having gained strength, is ready to leave Aunt Edna for his new adoptive parents (figure 2). Here he wears a tan sailor suit with a blue neckerchief and matching tan long stockings.

Costuming

The children are accurately depicted in early 20th century clothing. The Gladney's own son was pictured briefly at about 5 years old, dressed in a blue velvet suit with a large Eton collar, floppy bow, and knicker pants. The foundling child Tony wears a sailor suit. Most of the children were shown wearing long stockings, both the boys and girls. The film compresses her long career. The children's costuming in Fort Worth, Texas, is modeled on American styles of the period from about 1925 to 1933 when boys commonly wore short pants with long stockings. Tony's stockings change in color from black to tan following a change in American style that occurred in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The boys later in the film are mostly shown wearing short pants with long stockings. I think this was done to give the scenes a period look. It was not unknown for boys to wear short pants with long stockings in 1941, especially boys the age shown in the film. It was, however, becoming less common in particular in warm weather and thus would have given the scenes a period look to 1941 viewers. Older boys more commonly wore knickers in the 1920s and 30s, but the children Mrs. Gladney was working with were most younger children.

Reader Comments

A Texas reader writes, "After watching the movie, I decided to check out different websites and while yours is very interesting, I'm not sure that your insertion of "facts" regarding racial matter was either factual or necessary." [Nancy] Well I am not sure that the section on race is a insertion of "facts", but rather a discussion of Hollywood and race. We would be glad to correct any factial errors we may have made if our reader will pont them out to us. Readers are also certainly welcomed to submit alternative views. I not sure about how necessary the section was, but how necessary is any review of this film. In depends on the individuals goals. My experience is that readers who think that the section is unecessary or irrelevant are those who are uncofortable or disturbed about any discussion of race. And that is a whole other question as to just why many Americans do not like to talk about race. HBC is not a standard movie review site where the primary concern is Hollywood glitter. We are a history site and our concern with movies is that they are in part historical documents. And as many Americans get their history more from movies and television than any other source, we think it is useful to critique the historical accuracy of the movies. This is particularly important because most directors seem to be convinced that the need for drmatic affect gives then the right to rewrite history. Thus for our part topics such as the depiction of race and other historical issues is what most interests us about these films. I recall growing up as a boy thinking all cowboys and calvalry soldiers were white. It still looks rather strange to me to see black calvalry soldiers, but in fact important calvalry units were black units, the famed Bufalo Soldiers. HBC in its small way seeks to address these and other historical inaccuracies.

Anoter Texas reader writes, "I read the Texas contributor's remarks about the depiction of race in "Blossoms in the Dust" with interest. You are right that racial attitudes are an important historical discussion for this and similar films. HBC, naturally, focuses on history and its influences on clothing and art more so than other websites do. For some southerners and Texans (the Lone Star state is just too big and diverse to classify easily as a southern state) race remains a sensitive issue. In some places racism is as virulent as ever (generally in smaller, declining towns). [HBC note: A major differences, however, is that their prejudices no longer have the force of law nor the threat of extr legal violence.] I think some southerners react defensively to the past. [HBC note: And younger people are generally unaware of the nature and destructiveness of their state's racist past.] Their feelings run along such lines as "Yes, it's true and terrible that it was so, but things have changed so much," or "That's old news; why keep bringing it up? Does the South have to pay for its mistakes forever?" Others feel that the South was wrong, yes, but they resent that some want to remind us at every chance. Why ignore the progress that has been made? By the way were attitudes really so different in the rest of the country? Why isn't racism elsewhere discussed? These remarks are a sample of modern attitudes I've come across. They may explain in part why the contributor from Texas thought the racial discussion unnecessary." A very perceptive comment I think. It is interesting that so many Texans and other southerners complain about dredging up the racist past. Some how when it comes to the Alamo or the Civil War, there is considerable interest in dresging up the past.

Sources

The Handbook of Texas Online

Nancy, E--mail message, July 31, 2006.

Created: March 29, 2004
Last updated: 6:44 AM 8/3/2006