George W. S. Trow
Encyclopedia
George William Swift Trow Jr. (September 28, 1943–November 24, 2006) was an American essayist, novelist, playwright, and media critic
. He worked for The New Yorker
for almost 30 years, and wrote numerous essays and several books. He is best known for his long essay on television and its effect on American culture, "Within the Context of No Context," first published in the November 17, 1980 issue of The New Yorker, and later released as a book. This was one of the few times that the magazine devoted its central section to one piece of writing.
, Connecticut
. His father was a newspaperman. Trow studied at Phillips Exeter Academy
, and graduated from Harvard University
in 1965. There, he was president of the Harvard Lampoon
. He later served as an editor for its offshoot, the National Lampoon, working with young humorists like Michael O'Donoghue
. He served on active duty in the U.S. Coast Guard. In 1966, Trow took a position at The New Yorker, writing articles for the magazine, especially in the section "The Talk of the Town," and contributing short fiction. He worked under editors William Shawn
(1951-1987) and Robert Gottlieb
(1987-1992), whom he saw as mentors
.
In 1994, when new editor Tina Brown
invited Roseanne Barr
to oversee a special issue on women, Trow quit the magazine in protest. He abandoned the house he was building in Germantown
, New York
, and traveled around North America, living in Texas
, Alaska
, and Newfoundland
. Several years before his death, he moved to Naples
, Italy
. He died there in 2006, officially of natural causes.
Trow was socially ambitious: throughout his life, he was "striving to be part of the '10 percent of people at Harvard who wear tuxedo
s to their own little events in their own little buildings and you can see them out on their balconies with their tuxedos and their often very beautiful girls who are also similarly there from the Vanderbilts
and the Astors
.'"
-dominated world of his childhood in the 1940s and early '50s, to the ahistorical, tabloid sensibility born in the Jazz Age
and propagated by television.
Trow's reputation rests on his long nonfiction. These works have received mostly positive reviews. Highly literate readers, as well as reviewers in newspapers like The New York Times
and The Washington Post
, have been thrilled by Trow's brilliant and prophetic insights; wide-ranging references to serious and pop culture; and aphoristic
, sometimes post-modern
literary style. But the appeal and value of Trow's work can be difficult to communicate, because the style "in its very essence resists summary. Summary, of course, flees from detail, whereas for Trow the details are the notes without which there is no song." Some critics have found these works impenetrable and elitist; some argue that Trow's nostalgia for the pre-television era was misplaced, because the subsequent civil rights movements had made American culture more democratic.
Trow's only novel, The City in the Mist, (1984) did not impress critics. They were put off by its minimalist style and lack of plot, narrative momentum or involving characters. The book, which moves from the mid-19th century to the present, tracks the energy in three intertwined families, from the masculine vitality of a thuggish Irish immigrant to the weak flame of his elderly bachelor grandson, who lives on his income in two rooms in New York City, and spends his time caring for his clothes and going out into what remains of Society. The central concerns of the novel - the decline of masculine energy and the replacement of masculine social authority by feminine social authority - Trow later addresses explicitly in My Pilgrim's Progress.
Within the Context of No Context, which was edited by New Yorker editor William Shawn
, was published in book form in 1981 accompanied by Trow's profile of music mogul Ahmet Ertegün
. In 1997, "No Context" was reprinted with a new introductory essay, Collapsing Dominant.
In "No Context," Trow pointed out the role of television
in the destruction of American public culture and Americans' sense of history. "Middle-distance" institutions that had long given Americans' lives real contexts (such as fraternal organizations
, bowling leagues
, and women's club
s), had disappeared as people stayed home to watch television. Their replacements, television shows, were false contexts designed to be just compelling enough to keep people watching. What remained as real contexts for Americans to live in were "the grid of two hundred million" (the U.S. population at the time) and "the grid of intimacy" (the immediate family). Celebrities had a real life in both grids, and only they could now be complete. Deprived of real context, everyone else now wanted to be celebrities themselves.
Another major insight: As television marketers segmented the viewers into demographically defined groups, and pitched advertisements and shows to particular niches, viewers for the first time learned to see themselves as part of an age-related demographic group rather than as part of a linear flow of people from the past into the future. In consequence, demography
had replaced history as the default context for understanding the world. Things were now valued not on an absolute scale, but by discovering if one was in tune with one's group. Trow illustrates this point with a reference to Family Feud
, where a contestant was asked to guess "what a poll of a hundred people had guessed would be the height of the average American woman. Guess what they guessed. Guess what they guessed the average is."
"No Context" ends with a narrative memoir of Trow’s experiences working two summers as a guide at the 1964 New York World's Fair
. His summary of the Fair: "At the Fair, one could see the world of television impersonating the world of history.”
"No Context" remains a touchstone for many intellectuals, and is taught in university media studies classes. In an obituary for Trow, the novelist and screenwriter Michael Tolkin
is quoted as saying that "No Context" is no longer fashionable because "It's not a polemic for change. It's just a cold description of where things are going. There aren't many books that are unafraid to be that negative."
In his essay The Harvard Black Rock Forest, Trow criticizes another mainstream American institution, Harvard University
(which he had attended). The Black Rock Forest, 50 miles north of New York City
along the Hudson River
, had been donated to Harvard as a nature preserve for scientific studies. Trow writes about the Harvard administration's indifference to the property except as a profit opportunity, and its eventual rescue and dedication to educational nature studies.
A memoir and prequel
to "No Context," My Pilgrim's Progress: Media Studies, 1950-1998 analyzes the cultural world of the United States in the Fifties
, at the transitional time when television began to take over American culture. The book is written in a conversational style, sometimes transcribed from audiotapes. Trow "swirls" between pop and mainstream cultural icons, such as Doris Day
, Alfred Hitchcock
, Elvis Presley
, and Dwight D. Eisenhower
. The book cover has a photograph of President Eisenhower, whom Trow admired as "the guy of guys". Trow asserts that the models of masculine adulthood presented to his Baby Boomer generation by the official mass culture were so out of date or irrelevant that being in/on/with television (and adopting an ironic attitude to one's self) was the only possible choice.
Reviewers of Progress have generally found it insightful and worth reading, although a lesser literary achievement than "No Context." Some reviewers have been put off by what they see as haughtiness or elitism in Trow's repeated statement of authority, "You'll have to trust me on that one."
According to a close friend, Trow was "extremely upset" by the critical reception of Progress. After that, he only published one known article, a critique of television news anchor Dan Rather
.
Media studies
Media studies is an academic discipline and field of study that deals with the content, history and effects of various media; in particular, the 'mass media'. Media studies may draw on traditions from both the social sciences and the humanities, but mostly from its core disciplines of mass...
. He worked for The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
for almost 30 years, and wrote numerous essays and several books. He is best known for his long essay on television and its effect on American culture, "Within the Context of No Context," first published in the November 17, 1980 issue of The New Yorker, and later released as a book. This was one of the few times that the magazine devoted its central section to one piece of writing.
Biography
Trow was born in an upper middle-class family in GreenwichGreenwich, Connecticut
Greenwich is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. As of the 2010 census, the town had a total population of 61,171. It is home to many hedge funds and other financial service companies. Greenwich is the southernmost and westernmost municipality in Connecticut and is 38+ minutes ...
, Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
. His father was a newspaperman. Trow studied at Phillips Exeter Academy
Phillips Exeter Academy
Phillips Exeter Academy is a private secondary school located in Exeter, New Hampshire, in the United States.Exeter is noted for its application of Harkness education, a system based on a conference format of teacher and student interaction, similar to the Socratic method of learning through asking...
, and graduated from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
in 1965. There, he was president of the Harvard Lampoon
Harvard Lampoon
The Harvard Lampoon is an undergraduate humor publication founded in 1876 at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.-Overview:Published since 1876, The Harvard Lampoon is the world's longest continually published humor magazine. It is also the second longest-running English-language humor...
. He later served as an editor for its offshoot, the National Lampoon, working with young humorists like Michael O'Donoghue
Michael O'Donoghue
Michael O'Donoghue was a writer and performer. He was known for his dark and destructive style of comedy and humor, was a major contributor to National Lampoon magazine, and was the first head writer of Saturday Night Live.-Childhood:O'Donoghue was born Michael Henry Donohue in Sauquoit, New York...
. He served on active duty in the U.S. Coast Guard. In 1966, Trow took a position at The New Yorker, writing articles for the magazine, especially in the section "The Talk of the Town," and contributing short fiction. He worked under editors William Shawn
William Shawn
William Shawn was an American magazine editor who edited The New Yorker from 1952 until 1987.-Education and Early Life:...
(1951-1987) and Robert Gottlieb
Robert Gottlieb
Robert Adams Gottlieb , is an American writer and editor. From 1987 to 1992 he was the editor of The New Yorker.-Personal:Robert Gottlieb was born in New York City in 1931 and grew up in Manhattan...
(1987-1992), whom he saw as mentors
Mentoring
Mentorship refers to a personal developmental relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps a less experienced or less knowledgeable person....
.
In 1994, when new editor Tina Brown
Tina Brown
Tina Brown, Lady Evans, CBE , is a journalist, magazine editor, columnist, talk-show host and author of The Diana Chronicles, a biography of Diana, Princess of Wales. Born a British citizen, she took United States citizenship in 2005 after emigrating in 1984 to edit Vanity Fair...
invited Roseanne Barr
Roseanne Barr
Roseanne Cherrie Barr is an American actress, comedian, writer, television producer and director. Barr began her career in stand-up comedy at clubs before gaining fame for her role in the sitcom Roseanne. The show was a hit and lasted nine seasons, from 1988 to 1997...
to oversee a special issue on women, Trow quit the magazine in protest. He abandoned the house he was building in Germantown
Germantown
- Places :in the United States* Germantown, California, former name of Artois, California* Germantown, Connecticut* Germantown, Illinois* Germantown, Decatur County, Indiana...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, and traveled around North America, living in Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
, and Newfoundland
Newfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada. Situated in the country's Atlantic region, it incorporates the island of Newfoundland and mainland Labrador with a combined area of . As of April 2011, the province's estimated population is 508,400...
. Several years before his death, he moved to Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. He died there in 2006, officially of natural causes.
Trow was socially ambitious: throughout his life, he was "striving to be part of the '10 percent of people at Harvard who wear tuxedo
Tuxedo
A tuxedo is a type of semi-formal dress for men.Tuxedo may also refer to:-Places:Canada* Tuxedo, Winnipeg, Manitoba, a city neighborhood** Tuxedo , a provincial electoral district in Manitoba...
s to their own little events in their own little buildings and you can see them out on their balconies with their tuxedos and their often very beautiful girls who are also similarly there from the Vanderbilts
Vanderbilt family
The Vanderbilt family is an American family of Dutch origin prominent during the Gilded Age. It started off with the shipping and railroad empires of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and expanded into various other areas of industry and philanthropy...
and the Astors
Astor family
The Astor family is a Anglo-American business family of German descent notable for their prominence in business, society, and politics.-Founding family members:...
.'"
Writings
Throughout his career, Trow analyzed mainstream American cultural institutions to understand how the culture had changed from the newspaper-reading, eastern EstablishmentThe Establishment
The Establishment is a term used to refer to a visible dominant group or elite that holds power or authority in a nation. The term suggests a closed social group which selects its own members...
-dominated world of his childhood in the 1940s and early '50s, to the ahistorical, tabloid sensibility born in the Jazz Age
Jazz Age
The Jazz Age was a movement that took place during the 1920s or the Roaring Twenties from which jazz music and dance emerged. The movement came about with the introduction of mainstream radio and the end of the war. This era ended in the 1930s with the beginning of The Great Depression but has...
and propagated by television.
Trow's reputation rests on his long nonfiction. These works have received mostly positive reviews. Highly literate readers, as well as reviewers in newspapers like The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
and The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
, have been thrilled by Trow's brilliant and prophetic insights; wide-ranging references to serious and pop culture; and aphoristic
Aphorism
An aphorism is an original thought, spoken or written in a laconic and memorable form.The term was first used in the Aphorisms of Hippocrates...
, sometimes post-modern
Postmodern literature
The term Postmodern literature is used to describe certain characteristics of post–World War II literature and a reaction against Enlightenment ideas implicit in Modernist literature.Postmodern literature, like postmodernism as a whole, is hard to define and there is little agreement on the exact...
literary style. But the appeal and value of Trow's work can be difficult to communicate, because the style "in its very essence resists summary. Summary, of course, flees from detail, whereas for Trow the details are the notes without which there is no song." Some critics have found these works impenetrable and elitist; some argue that Trow's nostalgia for the pre-television era was misplaced, because the subsequent civil rights movements had made American culture more democratic.
Trow's only novel, The City in the Mist, (1984) did not impress critics. They were put off by its minimalist style and lack of plot, narrative momentum or involving characters. The book, which moves from the mid-19th century to the present, tracks the energy in three intertwined families, from the masculine vitality of a thuggish Irish immigrant to the weak flame of his elderly bachelor grandson, who lives on his income in two rooms in New York City, and spends his time caring for his clothes and going out into what remains of Society. The central concerns of the novel - the decline of masculine energy and the replacement of masculine social authority by feminine social authority - Trow later addresses explicitly in My Pilgrim's Progress.
Within the Context of No Context, which was edited by New Yorker editor William Shawn
William Shawn
William Shawn was an American magazine editor who edited The New Yorker from 1952 until 1987.-Education and Early Life:...
, was published in book form in 1981 accompanied by Trow's profile of music mogul Ahmet Ertegün
Ahmet Ertegun
Ahmet Ertegün was a Turkish American musician and businessman, best known as the founder and president of Atlantic Records. He also wrote classic blues and pop songs and served as Chairman of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and museum...
. In 1997, "No Context" was reprinted with a new introductory essay, Collapsing Dominant.
In "No Context," Trow pointed out the role of television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
in the destruction of American public culture and Americans' sense of history. "Middle-distance" institutions that had long given Americans' lives real contexts (such as fraternal organizations
Fraternal and service organizations
A "fraternal organization" or "fraternity" is a brotherhood, though the term usually connotes a distinct or formal organization. Please list college fraternities and sororities at List of social fraternities and sororities.-International:...
, bowling leagues
Bowling Alone
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community is a book by Robert D. Putnam. It was originally a 1995 essay entitled Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital.-Summary:...
, and women's club
Women's club
Women’s clubs, also known as woman's clubs, first arose in the United States during the post-Civil War period, in both the North and the South. As a result of increased leisure time due to modern household advances, middle-class women had more time to engage in intellectual pursuits...
s), had disappeared as people stayed home to watch television. Their replacements, television shows, were false contexts designed to be just compelling enough to keep people watching. What remained as real contexts for Americans to live in were "the grid of two hundred million" (the U.S. population at the time) and "the grid of intimacy" (the immediate family). Celebrities had a real life in both grids, and only they could now be complete. Deprived of real context, everyone else now wanted to be celebrities themselves.
Another major insight: As television marketers segmented the viewers into demographically defined groups, and pitched advertisements and shows to particular niches, viewers for the first time learned to see themselves as part of an age-related demographic group rather than as part of a linear flow of people from the past into the future. In consequence, demography
Demography
Demography is the statistical study of human population. It can be a very general science that can be applied to any kind of dynamic human population, that is, one that changes over time or space...
had replaced history as the default context for understanding the world. Things were now valued not on an absolute scale, but by discovering if one was in tune with one's group. Trow illustrates this point with a reference to Family Feud
Family Feud
Family Feud is an American television game show created by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman. Two families compete against each other in a contest to name the most popular responses to a survey question posed to 100 people...
, where a contestant was asked to guess "what a poll of a hundred people had guessed would be the height of the average American woman. Guess what they guessed. Guess what they guessed the average is."
"No Context" ends with a narrative memoir of Trow’s experiences working two summers as a guide at the 1964 New York World's Fair
1964 New York World's Fair
The 1964/1965 New York World's Fair was the third major world's fair to be held in New York City. Hailing itself as a "universal and international" exposition, the fair's theme was "Peace Through Understanding," dedicated to "Man's Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe";...
. His summary of the Fair: "At the Fair, one could see the world of television impersonating the world of history.”
"No Context" remains a touchstone for many intellectuals, and is taught in university media studies classes. In an obituary for Trow, the novelist and screenwriter Michael Tolkin
Michael Tolkin
Michael L. Tolkin is an American filmmaker and novelist. He has written numerous screenplays, including The Player , which he adapted from his 1988 book by the same name, and for which he received the 1993 Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay...
is quoted as saying that "No Context" is no longer fashionable because "It's not a polemic for change. It's just a cold description of where things are going. There aren't many books that are unafraid to be that negative."
In his essay The Harvard Black Rock Forest, Trow criticizes another mainstream American institution, Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
(which he had attended). The Black Rock Forest, 50 miles north of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
along the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
, had been donated to Harvard as a nature preserve for scientific studies. Trow writes about the Harvard administration's indifference to the property except as a profit opportunity, and its eventual rescue and dedication to educational nature studies.
A memoir and prequel
Prequel
A prequel is a work that supplements a previously completed one, and has an earlier time setting.The widely recognized term was a 20th-century neologism, and a portmanteau from pre- and sequel...
to "No Context," My Pilgrim's Progress: Media Studies, 1950-1998 analyzes the cultural world of the United States in the Fifties
1950s
The 1950s or The Fifties was the decade that began on January 1, 1950 and ended on December 31, 1959. The decade was the sixth decade of the 20th century...
, at the transitional time when television began to take over American culture. The book is written in a conversational style, sometimes transcribed from audiotapes. Trow "swirls" between pop and mainstream cultural icons, such as Doris Day
Doris Day
Doris Day is an American actress, singer and, since her retirement from show business, an animal rights activist. With an entertainment career that spanned through almost 50 years, Day started her career as a big band singer in 1939, but only began to be noticed after her first hit recording,...
, Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
, Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
, and Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
. The book cover has a photograph of President Eisenhower, whom Trow admired as "the guy of guys". Trow asserts that the models of masculine adulthood presented to his Baby Boomer generation by the official mass culture were so out of date or irrelevant that being in/on/with television (and adopting an ironic attitude to one's self) was the only possible choice.
Reviewers of Progress have generally found it insightful and worth reading, although a lesser literary achievement than "No Context." Some reviewers have been put off by what they see as haughtiness or elitism in Trow's repeated statement of authority, "You'll have to trust me on that one."
According to a close friend, Trow was "extremely upset" by the critical reception of Progress. After that, he only published one known article, a critique of television news anchor Dan Rather
Dan Rather
Daniel Irvin "Dan" Rather, Jr. is an American journalist and the former news anchor for the CBS Evening News. He is now managing editor and anchor of the television news magazine Dan Rather Reports on the cable channel HDNet. Rather was anchor of the CBS Evening News for 24 years, from March 9,...
.