Historical Note - Page 2

Thomas was not yet done with his European venture. In late December, he went to Germany where he spent several weeks gathering information about the revolt that followed the war. It would become the subject of one of his travelogues when he returned to the United States.

By February 1919, Lowell Thomas and Harry Chase were editing the film and selecting the photographs for several travelogues that Thomas wrote having to do with the war. Thomas was concerned that the American public would not be terrifically engaged now that the war in Europe was over. Opening night was 2 March 1919 at the Century Theatre in New York. As he anticipated, the public did not throng to his travelogue presentations. Only when he performed either the Palestine (featuring Edmund Allenby) or the Arabia (featuring T. E. Lawrence) travelogues did he get something of a crowd. So popular were these shows with the Jewish community that Thomas had them translated into Yiddish and hired Herman Bernard to give performances on New York's East Side.

When his two week run at the Century Theatre ended, Thomas moved his show to the Garden Theater at Madison Square. The change in venue did not noticeably affect the number of patrons on any given night. Thomas's lecture on the role of the British in the fall of Jerusalem greatly impressed one patron: Percy Burton. Burton was a British impresario who urged Thomas to bring his Palestine and Arabia travelogues to London. When Burton arranged for Thomas to open his show at the Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden, Thomas agreed to take his travelogue shows overseas. On 31 July 1919, Thomas, his wife and Chase were headed back to Europe on a French steamship. They were accompanied by Dale Carnagey (who later changed his name to Carnegie). Thomas had met Carnagey during his earlier travelogue days. Feeling that it would make for a more dramatic presentation, Thomas and Carnagey worked on board the ship to combine the two travelogues into one.

After arriving in France, Thomas had to hurry to London. Opening on 14 August 1919 under the auspices of The English-Speaking Union, "With Allenby in Palestine and with Lawrence in Arabia" was a sensation. Edmund Allenby and, particularly, T. E. Lawrence became the superstars of their day. Thomas's wife Frances proudly wrote to her parents that so popular was the travelogue that the return of the opera was delayed to hold Thomas over for a few weeks longer. Eventually the opera returned to its rightful home, but Londoners had not yet had their fill of Thomas's story. On 17 October 1919 he opened at the cavernous Royal Albert Hall, and on 8 December 1919 he moved his show to Philharmonic Hall. By the end of the year, he was performing his travelogue at Queen's Hall to enthusiastic crowds. Sir Ernest Shackleton, impressed with Thomas's success, sought out his advice when he began giving his own travelogue on the South Pole.

During his stay in London, Thomas met with T. E. Lawrence several times. Thomas even introduced Lawrence to Frances. An entry from Frances's journal dated 22 August 1919 states: "Colonel Lawrence came for lunch. We knew he would not like to go out to any popular restaurants, so we had lunch served in our apartment. When Tommy introduced him, I held out my hand and said, 'I am very pleased to know you.'" Letters from Lawrence indicate that he and Thomas had a cordial relationship.

During his London run, Thomas was invited by the Prime Minister of Australia to take his travelogue to Australia and New Zealand. By June 1920, Thomas, Frances, and Harry Chase were once again on a steamship. This time they were headed for Melbourne. Thomas was by now planning his next travelogue production. Fearing that a travelogue about the war would lose currency in a couple of years, Thomas and Chase began photographing and filming for their next production. They traveled to Malaya, Burma and India, using the receipts from their current travelogue performances to underwrite their new venture. Although not as wildly successful as his first travelogue, "Through Romantic India" proved to be a success.

In 1919 Thomas signed a three book deal with Harper's & Brothers that would chronicle his wartime experiences. He was a prolific writer who wrote more than 50 books and countless articles in his lifetime. When in 1924 eight American fliers attempted to become the first to fly around the world, Thomas was asked to be the flight historian. His serialized accounts of their exploits appeared in American newspapers. The "First World Flight" inspired a new Thomas travelogue as well as a book by the same title.

During the 1920s Thomas signed additional book deals while continuing to perform his travelogues. Meanwhile, he and Frances continued their peripatetic lifestyle, even after the birth of their son, Lowell Junior, in London in 1923. In 1926 young Lowell was left behind in New York as the Thomases undertook a new adventure. Covering over 20,000 miles in a matter of months, they toured Europe and Russia by air, often in retrofitted old war planes. Published in 1927, "European Skyways" was Thomas's exuberant account of their travels.

The Thomases were prospering by the late 1920s. Lowell and Fran finally settled down, purchasing the Clover Brook farm on Quaker Hill at Pawling, New York. Thomas continued to perform his travelogues while also maintaining a full schedule on the more traditional lecture circuit. In 1927, Thomas signed a contract with Doubleday and Company to write six books. Realizing he needed assistance, Thomas entered into what turned out to be a lifelong partnership with Prosper Buranelli who wrote and edited numerous books, articles and scripts with him. By all accounts a brilliant man, Buranelli was credited with popularizing the crossword puzzle in American newspapers.

On 29 September 1930 Lowell Thomas became a radio broadcaster who for fifteen minutes Monday through Friday highlighted the daily news for the American public. He had been invited to audition by the "Literary Digest" when the sponsor of the program became disaffected with Thomas's predecessor, Floyd Gibbons. Thomas's distinctive voice and ease and comfort behind the microphone made him a natural. He would broadcast "Lowell Thomas and the News" for 46 continuous years, first on the NBC and then on the CBS radio network. The Sun Oil Corporation and then Procter & Gamble were to become major sponsors of Thomas's broadcast. It was not long before Thomas was asked to become the voice of the Fox Movietone News. He and Prosper Buranelli worked feverishly to produce timely newsreels that played in American movie theaters. Newsreels offered the only opportunity for Americans to see as well as hear the news of the day before the advent of television.

Lowell Thomas was a sportsman, an avid skier and golfer. To make his favorite pastimes more accessible Thomas built a golf course and ski slope, with an accompanying ski tow, on his property. Thomas helped to promote skiing, a sport that that was still in its infancy in America in the 1930s, by doing remote radio broadcasts from various ski lodges. An interest in softball led him to construct a baseball field on Quaker Hill. His softball games, often held to raise money for charities, attracted a wide variety of celebrities, athletes, explorers, politicians and journalists as both players and spectators. Babe Ruth, Jim Thorpe, Heywood Broun, Vice President Henry A. Wallace and Anna May Wong are just a few of those who played in the games. Thomas's team, the Nine Old Men, took on a variety of opponents such as Gene Tunney's Boxeroos and Robert L. Ripley's Believe-it-or-Nots. Most notable of the opposing teams was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's The Packers (a tongue-in-cheek reference to Roosevelt's attempt to increase the number of Supreme Court Justices). Thomas's ballgames with his Hyde Park neighbor's team became an annual event before the onset of World War II.

It was also in the 1930s that Thomas became interested in developing the land that surrounded his Quaker Hill estate. To prevent land developers from purchasing a large tract of land and then dividing it into small parcels, lessening the value of his own land and the quality of life as he saw it, Thomas purchased the Fred F. French estate. The property was eventually divided into large tracts to attract more well-heeled buyers. Among those who counted themselves neighbors of Thomas were the Thomas E. Deweys and the Edward R. Murrows.

Early in his career, Thomas began to join private clubs where men of power and influence met (rarely were women allowed to be members). Often he was asked to become President or a member of the Board of Directors. Among the influential clubs Thomas belonged to in his lifetime were The Explorers Club, Adventurers' Club, Advertising Club, Dutch Treat Club and the Bohemian Club where Thomas would attend Caveman Camp with his good friend of many years, former President Herbert Hoover.

In sharp contrast to his first wartime experience, Lowell Thomas stayed on the home front and continued his daily news broadcasts for most of World War II. Thomas spent the early war years writing a book about several of the heroes of World War II. Published in 1943, it was titled "These Men Shall Never Die." It was not until 1945 that Thomas toured the war fronts when the United States government sent out invitations to radio news commentators. Among the political and military leaders Thomas met were President Sergio Osmena of the Philippines, Chiang Kai-shek of China and Generals George S. Patton and Dwight D. Eisenhower of the American Army. During this tour of the war fronts Thomas once again acted as a war correspondent. He wrote numerous articles for the Associated Newspapers, Inc., which distributed them to newspapers across the United States.

Despite many times having traveled the far reaches of the earth, it was not until 1949 that Thomas became one of the few Westerners allowed entry into Tibet. Most likely, the young Dalai Lama and his advisers hoped to garner support for their cause against the Communist leader Mao Zedong, who they feared would overrun their country. Although Thomas wanted to bring a professional filmmaker and photographer along with him, only he and his son, Lowell Junior, were granted a lamyik, the Tibetan guarantee of safe conduct that carried the Dalai Lama's seal. The responsibility for filming, photographing and tape recording the sights and sounds of Tibetan life would fall mostly to Lowell, Jr. Thomas and his son were among a handful of people who were allowed to photograph the Dalai Lama, and they were the first to film him. They arrived at Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, just as the summer festival was coming to a close. They were able to film and photograph the masked actors as they sang, danced and enacted a heroic drama. The Thomases' visit with the Dalai Lama lasted almost two weeks. During that time, they had the opportunity to meet a few Westerners who were allowed to live in Tibet: Hugh Richardson, Heinrich Harrer, Peter Aufschnaiter and Reggie Fox.

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