One Book One Northwestern is an annual university-wide reading initiative that aims to generate a campus-wide conversation centered around a thought-provoking book. The 2024-2025 One Book selection is Louise Edrich’s 2020 novel The Night Watchman. Each year, The Block partners with One Book to select and compile works from the permanent collection that connect to the book’s themes. This year’s list of works connect with themes in the novel, including “kinship, rural and urban life, community action, and standing up for one’s rights.”
Title: Speed-up
Date: August 14, 1936
Medium: Lithograph
Artist: Claire (Millman) Mahl Moore (American, 1917 – 1988)
Dimensions:16 3/4 x 23 3/4 in.
Credit Line: Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Gift of Louise Dunn Yochim
Object number:1992.1.15
On October 17th, 2024, Academic Curator Corinne Granof gave an online talk about Claire (Millman) Mahl Moore’s 1936 lithograph Speed Up, which is one of the works featured in The Block’s One Book teaching collection. In her talk, Granof discussed Speed Up in the context of The Night Watchman, relating Moore’s depiction of women laborers in a jewel bearing factory to accounts of similar plants and Indigenous labor exploitation in The Night Watchman.
“Mahl’s print, Speed Up, powerfully evokes the relentless, cyclical rhythm of factory labor—a world where women work past the point of exhaustion, bound to a repetitive, grinding pace set by the lone male boss, centered and seated like a king on his throne. Through details like the harsh overhead lights and the clock ticking late into the night, Mahl paints a picture of workday monotony and fatigue that resonates deeply with Erdrich’s themes of labor justice and exploitation.”
Corinne Granof, Academic Curator
Explore More
Check out more of our artwork selections related to One Book One Northwestern Initiative
