''"The Libido for the Ugly"'' is a famous essay by

H. L. Mencken Henry Louis Mencken (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956) was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic, and scholar of American English. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians, ...

(1880–1956), a renowned

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

satirist This is an incomplete list of writers, cartoonists and others known for involvement in satire – humorous social criticism. They are grouped by era and listed by year of birth. Included is a list of modern satires. Under Contemporary, 1930-196 ...

, and social critic of the American scene. Rhetorically his piece uses

Juvenalian satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or ...

to lampoon the industrial blight of

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...

and

Western Pennsylvania Western Pennsylvania is a region in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, covering the western third of the state. Pittsburgh is the region's principal city, with a metropolitan area population of about 2.4 million people, and serves as its economic ...

, the nation's leading industrial district in the 1920s. Mencken writes from the point of view of a passenger on an east-bound express train of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Specifically, the speaker is scanning the landscape between Pittsburgh's East Liberty station and Greensburg, declaiming an endemic ugliness in architecture and poverty and nature. This industrial ugliness, he claims, is shameful and in contrast to the quaint charm of Europe's poor and rural villages. His overall conclusion about American industrialization is "out of the melting pot emerges a race which hates beauty." "The Libido for the Ugly" was first published in 1926 as a column in the ''

Baltimore Evening Sun ''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries. Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by Tri ...

'' and next in Mencken's book ''Prejudices: Sixth Series'' (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1927). Since then the essay has been widely reprinted and celebrated in anthologies.

References

*Edward K. Muller (1991)
"Ash Pile of Steel City? H.L. Mencken Helps Mold an Image"
''Western Pennsylvania History'', Volume 74, Number 2 (Summer 1991) pp. 51–61. Retrieved September 18, 2012.

External links

1926 essays Satirical works Works by H. L. Mencken History of Pittsburgh {{essay-stub