Oil, p.69
Oil!, page 69
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 6
The basis of Ruth’s life: Sinclair added this sentence to the novel’s single-volume edition. See DW, August 28, 1926, p. 5.
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patriotism was buncombe: Foolish talk; nonsense.
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hole like this without liquor: Sinclair added the sentences that follow in this paragraph for Oil!’s 1927 single-volume edition, so as to underscore the developing rift between Bunny and Dad. DW, September 2, 1926, p. 5.
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stand the gaff: A difficult or painful ordeal.
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the young man in the Bible story: Matthew 19:21–22: “Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me. But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions” (KJV).
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Congress was passing a series of measures: Between 1917 and 1918, the U.S. Congress approved three Liberty Loan Acts for the sale of public bonds to fund the war effort. The 1917 Selective Service Act authorized the government to conscript citizens between the ages of 21 and 45 for military service via a national draft.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 12
“ten-twenty-thirty” melodrama: An inexpensive, often sensational play that catered to working-class audiences in New York City’s Bowery district through the early twentieth century, with tickets priced at ten, twenty, and thirty cents.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 13
eight-hour day . . . benevolent old gentleman: The U.S. Supreme Court ratified the Adamson Act in 1917 after a national wave of union strikes. The benevolent old gentleman was Uncle Sam.
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CHAPTER VIII: THE WAR
a petting party: A youthful gathering for kissing and fondling in a nonpromiscuous setting.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1
was being “vamped”: Being seduced by a woman without concern for her object.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 2
the War to end War—the War for Democracy: The locution “the war to end war” dates to a series of articles by H. G. Wells collected as The War That Will End War (1914). On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson appealed to Congress for a Declaration of War against Germany so that the world could “be made safe for democracy.”
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host of “four-minute men”: Volunteers who championed the U.S. war effort by delivering four-minute orations in theaters, churches, and other public venues. Topics were chosen by the Wilson administration’s main propaganda office, the Committee on Public Information.
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for the Serbian orphans: U.S. philanthropists and public organizations contributed significant aid to orphans created by the Central Powers’ assaults on Serbia between 1914 and 1918.
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fanatics called “Bolsheviks”: Russian revolutionaries led by Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924). After creating a Marxist political party for the revolutionary proletariat in 1912, the Bolsheviks became Russia’s ruling party in the 1917 October Revolution.
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a horde of them: In the spring of 1917, Lenin negotiated with Germany for safe passage back into Russia after living as an exile in Switzerland. A small group of other Russian expatriates joined him on a closed train.
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women of the country: Anti-Bolshevik publications widely circulated a rumor that women were forced to become public property for male sexual exploitation under Soviet rule. Many print publications also reported tensions between Lenin and Leon Trotsky (1879–1940). See C. M. Roebuck, The Nationalization of Women: The Natural History of a Lie (London: British Socialist Party, 1919).
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Belgian orphans’ ball: Children orphaned by the Central Powers’ assaults on Belgium became the face of white innocence among Allied nations during the war. Fundraising events on their behalf were widespread in the United States and abroad.
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CHAPTER IX: THE VICTORY
to the cantonment: A military camp.
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men with knouts: Knouts are heavy whips with forked lashes and a long handle.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 2
Persian magus: An ancient Persian priest in possession of esoteric knowledge, often associated with Zoroastrianism. A “silver band”: A musical band in which the instruments were plated in silver, rather than being solely lacquered. Plated instruments were more expensive to produce and tended to be associated with more successful and accomplished musicians.
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Battle of Picardy: Operation Michael, also known as the Second Battle of Picardy, took place in March of 1914, when German forces captured several towns in France’s Picardy region.
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“The sunlight clasps the earth”: From Percy Bysshe Shelley’s 1819 poem “Love’s Philosophy” (13–16).
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00 . . . up to 8,000: The number of feet in a movie’s filmstock reels.
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Battle of Flanders: Actually the fourth Battle of Flanders, more frequently called the Battle of Lys or the Fourth Battle of Ypres, which took place between April 9–29, 1918. Like others identified in this narrative sequence, the battle featured in the German spring offensive on the western front.
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Battle of the Aisne and the Oise: The Third Battle of the Aisne took place between May 27–June 6, 1918.
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Battle of Belleau Wood: The battle that marked the U.S. Army’s first significant entry into the war between June 1–26, 1918.
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Bohemians became Czechoslovakians: Amid Austria-Hungary’s 1918 collapse, the Bohemian kingdom was incorporated into Czechoslovakia alongside Slovakia, Ruthenia, Moravia, and Silesia.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 10
barracks and YMCA huts along the famous Trans-Siberian: Beginning in August 1918, the U.S. Army dispatched troops to secure sections of the Trans-Siberian Railroad north from Vladivostok, a Russian port city. The YMCA and Red Cross built military hospitals, camps, and social centers or “huts” for the soldiers.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 11
called “mission oak”: A style distinguished by straight lines and smooth panels, often made from heavy oak wood.
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Second Battle of the Marne: Held between July 15–18, 1918, the contest marked the last significant German assault on the western front. “Friedensturm”: German for “Peace Offensive.”
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 13
St. Mihiel salient: Referring to an episode in the Battle of Saint-Mihiel, September 12–16, 1918, when Allied forces defeated a German bulge formation (or “salient”). The event resulted in the earliest invocation of the term “D-Day.”
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 14
across to the Volga: Europe’s longest river, flowing from central and southern Russia into the Caspian Sea.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 15
ataman . . . mandarin . . . tuchun: An ataman refers to an elite Cossack military commander. A mandarin is a scholar-bureaucrat in China’s imperial civil service. A tuchun is a Chinese provincial military leader.
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Paul is at Irkutsk: The administrative city for the Irkutsk province in east-central Russia.
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Omsk, Tomsk, Tobolsk: A mistake on Sinclair’s part. Despite plans to include Tobolsk on the Trans-Siberian Railroad’s northern line, the city was bypassed upon the railway’s construction.
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CHAPTER X: THE UNIVERSITY
Methodists . . . oil king: The University of Southern California, Sinclair’s model for Southern Pacific University, was developed under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Sinclair’s model for Dad, Edward L. Doheny (1856–1935), had a son named Edward Doheny Jr. (“Ned”) who graduated from USC in 1916. Doheny later gave more than one million dollars to USC and other universities around Los Angeles.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1
Pete O’Reilly: After this passage in the novel, O’Reilly, owner of Excelsior Petroleum Company, is referred to as “Excelsior Pete.”
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because of Matthew: Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) was an influential British poet, cultural critic, and Oxford professor of poetry.
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General Denikin . . . at Archangel: Anton Denikin (1872–1947) was a Russian officer in the Imperial Russian Army who became deputy supreme ruler of Russia in the 1917–1922 Russian Civil War. Archangel is a northern Russian city where anti-Bolshevik forces led a coup against the local Soviet government in August 1918.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 4
Kerensky days . . . Kolchak: Alexander Kerensky (1881–1970) was the Socialist Revolutionary Party leader who served as prime minister in Russia from February 1917 until the Bolsheviks came to power in October of that year. Alexander Kolchak (1874–1920) was the Imperial Russian admiral who created an anti-Communist government in Siberia and became Russia’s internationally recognized head of state between 1918–1920.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 5
relief work in Thessaloníki: A port city in modern-day Greece situated on World War I’s Macedonian front between 1915–1918.
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“fourteen points,” . . . “freedom of the seas”: In a speech before the U.S. Congress on January 8, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson enumerated fourteen principles for peace in the twilight of World War I. Britain balked at Wilson’s principle of unrestricted oceanic travel in extraterritorial waters.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 7
Franco-Prussian war: The conflict between France and Prussia’s North German Confederation from July 19, 1870, to May 10, 1871, ending in France’s defeat and a unified German nation.
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dragged to Versailles: The Treaty of Versailles, signed June 28, 1919, compelled the defeated Central Powers to give substantial war reparations to the Allied nations.
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From General Graves: William Graves (1865–1940) was the U.S. Army major general who led the forces in Siberia under orders from President Wilson.
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The total amount of international loans: Sinclair adjusted this passage for the novel’s single-volume edition to highlight the international nature of the war debt. The Daily Worker version states, “The amount at stake was one or two hundred billions of dollars.” DW, October 6, 1926, p. 5.
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the wartime ambassador: George Bakhmeteff (1847–1928) was the Russian ambassador to the United States who received significant support for anti-Bolshevik activities in Russia from the Wilson administration. Through this backdoor channel, Wilson used public funds to fight Soviets without congressional oversight.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 12
petroleum regions of wealth untold: France and Britain collaborated in dividing the Middle East into separate French and British spheres of influence amid the partitioning of the defeated Ottoman Empire. Britain seized almost all of Mesopotamia (including modern-day Iraq, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan), while France took control of modern-day Syria, Lebanon, İskenderun, and southern Turkey. Although limited to “mandate” or custodial powers, in practice Anglo-French rule extended earlier colonial projects. During this period, President Wilson attempted to create a new U.S. mandate in Armenia, in part to halt the Armenian genocide. See chapter XVIII, notes 2 and 5.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 13
They inspected the new refinery: The paragraphs that follow are Sinclair’s single most extensive additions to the novel, and serve to underscore the centrality of refinement as an idea and process. After the novel’s initial installment run, Sinclair added the entire scene beginning with this sentence and continuing through the paragraph in which Bunny and Dad “went back to the ‘ranch house.’ ” See DW, October 7, 1926, p. 4.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 14
petrolatum . . . paraffin wax: Petrolatum is an opaque semisolid marketed as petroleum jelly. Paraffin wax is a soft, colorless solid used historically in candle making.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 15
add another C-unit: A set of carbon atoms arranged in a pattern.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 16
hexane . . . saturated hydrocarbons: Hydrocarbons are saturated when a given hydrocarbon molecule’s carbon atoms are bonded to as many hydrogen atoms as possible. Hexane and methylcyclopentane are unsaturated hydrocarbons, which makes them less stable at high temperatures.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 17
olefins: hydrocarbon compounds in which at least one pair of carbon atoms are joined by a double bond. These compounds are often generated through the industrial production of gasoline. RCH2 — CH2 — CH2R1: This formula describes a chemical reaction for the splitting of heavy crude oil into lighter hydrocarbons used for refined fuel. The “R” is not an element but a wild card indicating any substituent on the carbon chain. I thank Mark Bowen for this observation. Naphthenes: any class of saturated hydrocarbons derived from crude oil.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 18
Saghalien . . . Baku: Sakhalin, formerly Saghalien, is Russia’s largest island, located on the northern Japanese archipelago, where substantial oil reservoirs were thought to exist. Baku is a global center of oil production on the Caspian Sea in modern-day Azerbaijan, where nearly half of the world’s oil was derived at the century’s outset. Conflicts between Baku Bolsheviks, Ottoman troops, and a newly created Azerbaijan government led the Bolsheviks to relinquish power to local conservatives. After the new conservative leadership asked for British military support, Britain took formal control of Baku in November 1918.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 19
putting in the Anglo-Dutch: Referring to Royal Dutch Shell, a multinational oil and natural gas conglomerate owned by British and Dutch interests, and which maintained long-standing operations in Baku.
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Russian Jewish boys and girls: In 1919, several Russian-speaking youths were convicted under the 1917 Espionage Act for printing and distributing leaflets that critiqued America’s presence in Russia and attempts to thwart the Bolshevik revolution. One defendant died in custody before the trial; four received 15– to 20–year sentences.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 21
counterrevolutionary general Mannerheim: Carl Mannerheim (1867–1951) was a Finnish military general who led the conservative White faction in the Finnish Civil War of 1918. Mannerheim defeated Finland’s reds amid a ruthless campaign of massacres and executions.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 22
American troops at Archangel: In the twilight of World War I, U.S. and British forces arrived in the Archangel province to secure munitions and guard against German forces, though many troops stayed to fight Bolsheviks after the war’s formal cessation. Both U.S. and British regiments mutinied against these orders.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 23
from his tent at reveille: A morning bugle or trumpet call to awaken military personnel.
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Perm, or Ufa: Perm is a Russian city and administrative center with major munitions factories. Ufa is a large Russian city near the Volga River.
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sailors . . . in the Black Sea: The Black Sea mutiny occurred on April 19, 1919, when several French naval crews refused to battle Bolshevik forces.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 26
German troops . . . British soldiers at Folkestone: German High Seas Fleet sailors revolted on November 3, 1918. On January 3, 1919, British troops garrisoned at Folkestone in southeast England refused orders to appear at reveille to protest an impending return to the French front. Sinclair imaginatively conflates the Folkestone mutiny with another in February 1919, when a Yorkshire regiment refused to march against Soviets in Archangel.
