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Skyscraper
Lynn is an ambitious young woman who loves her job in the gleaming new Manhattan skyscraper. Soon, Lynn also loves Tom, the young clerk down the hall. They are so in love that if they don’t get married, something improper is bound to happen. But her company has a strict new policy: Any woman who marries will be immediately fired.
First published in 1931 -- the same year the Empire State Building opened its doors -- Skyscraper marks the advent of a new kind of romance plot, and Lynn a new kind of heroine. Lynn is facing choices that will determine the course of the rest of her life, but rather than just choose between suitors, Lynn and other working girls like her must decide whether to abandon their careers—or abandon their men. They can’t have both—or can they?
First published in 1931 -- the same year the Empire State Building opened its doors -- Skyscraper marks the advent of a new kind of romance plot, and Lynn a new kind of heroine. Lynn is facing choices that will determine the course of the rest of her life, but rather than just choose between suitors, Lynn and other working girls like her must decide whether to abandon their careers—or abandon their men. They can’t have both—or can they?
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1931
5 people are currently reading
161 people want to read
About the author
Faith Baldwin
173 books33 followersFaith Baldwin attended private academies and finishing schools, and in 1914-16 she lived in Dresden, Germany. She married Hugh H. Cuthrell in 1920, and the next year she published her first novel, Mavis of Green Hill. Although she often claimed she did not care for authorship, her steady stream of books belies that claim; over the next 56 years she published more than 85 books, more than 60 of them novels with such titles as Those Difficult Years (1925), The Office Wife (1930), Babs and Mary Lou (1931), District Nurse (1932), Manhattan Nights (1937), and He Married a Doctor (1944). Her last completed novel, Adam's Eden, appeared in 1977.
Typically, a Faith Baldwin book presents a highly simplified version of life among the wealthy. No matter what the difficulties, honour and goodness triumph, and hero and heroine are united. Evil, depravity, poverty, and sex found no place in her work, which she explicitly intended for the housewife and the working girl. The popularity of her writing was enormous. In 1936, in the midst of the Great Depression, she published five novels in magazine serial form and three earlier serials in volume form and saw four of her works made into motion pictures, for an income that year in excess of $315,000. She also wrote innumerable stories, articles, and newspaper columns, no less ephemeral than the novels.
Typically, a Faith Baldwin book presents a highly simplified version of life among the wealthy. No matter what the difficulties, honour and goodness triumph, and hero and heroine are united. Evil, depravity, poverty, and sex found no place in her work, which she explicitly intended for the housewife and the working girl. The popularity of her writing was enormous. In 1936, in the midst of the Great Depression, she published five novels in magazine serial form and three earlier serials in volume form and saw four of her works made into motion pictures, for an income that year in excess of $315,000. She also wrote innumerable stories, articles, and newspaper columns, no less ephemeral than the novels.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
July 8, 2023
First published in 1931 and again in 2002. It is a story about a young woman, Lynn Harding, age 22 who is employed with the Seacoast Trust Company in Manhattan. She has a promising career ahead of her.
Tom Shepard is 23. He had a promising future at Yale playing college football, but his education was cut short due to a loss of his father's wealth in the 1929 Stock Market Crash. So now Tom is working at the same bank as Lynn; except Tom is a secretary.
David Dwight is 48, and he is a highly successful trial lawyer.
Lynn is attracted to Tom, but David Dwight, in Lynn's mind, would make a more suitable husband. But David is already married with children. David and Tom both pursue Lynn relentlessly. In fact, Tom eventually proposes to Lynn. But Lynn declines thinking that David would seek a divorce from his wife and then marry Lynn. But David, as it happens is not who he pretends to be.
The story unfolds among these three individuals. Lynn eventually reaches her decision, but it comes to a surprising decision and end of the story.
Tom Shepard is 23. He had a promising future at Yale playing college football, but his education was cut short due to a loss of his father's wealth in the 1929 Stock Market Crash. So now Tom is working at the same bank as Lynn; except Tom is a secretary.
David Dwight is 48, and he is a highly successful trial lawyer.
Lynn is attracted to Tom, but David Dwight, in Lynn's mind, would make a more suitable husband. But David is already married with children. David and Tom both pursue Lynn relentlessly. In fact, Tom eventually proposes to Lynn. But Lynn declines thinking that David would seek a divorce from his wife and then marry Lynn. But David, as it happens is not who he pretends to be.
The story unfolds among these three individuals. Lynn eventually reaches her decision, but it comes to a surprising decision and end of the story.
August 25, 2025
In many novels work is simply wished away and the author's characters somehow live lives free of that pesky inconvenience. For many of us, like it or not, work commands most of our time and energy, that could be more enjoyably spent otherwise. This is a novel that focuses on work, set in the Great Depression when "women had to earn money in any way they could to support themselves and, not infrequently, their husbands and children." From the Thirties to the Fifties, Hollywood produced an endless stream of movies in which by the end of the film career women realized the error of their ways and succumbed to connubial bliss far from the travails of the workplace. This has not such a conclusion. This is part of what Skycraper presents for The Feminist Press to find it worthy of inclusion as one of the first three novels in their "Women Write Pulp" series. On the other hand, it's still a romance, pulp or not, so very little happens, mostly just worrying, fretting, and "will she or won't she," "does he or don't he?" Enjoyable for the social history contained in this time capsule (from 1931), at times a little tedious during the eternal agonizing. Also a 1932 pre-Code film, Skyscraper Souls, featuring a perfectly cast Maureen O'Sullivan and Warren William. I saw it some years ago but remember it as being significantly different than the book and a genuine guilty pleasure.
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November 17, 2019From 1931
Okay, I do not wish to read this. Some maybe five years ago I bought four books from the Femmes Fatales: Women Write Pulp imprint. I read the other three (two by Vera Caspery, one by Evelyn Piper), but this did not look so interesting. It is not a thriller or mystery, and the back cover calls it "a Sex in the City for its time." So I never read it. Now I figured I should finally try it. It's good, tells a lot about the era it's from. But it is mostly about romance, and I got so bored. Maybe someday. I do own the book.
Okay, I do not wish to read this. Some maybe five years ago I bought four books from the Femmes Fatales: Women Write Pulp imprint. I read the other three (two by Vera Caspery, one by Evelyn Piper), but this did not look so interesting. It is not a thriller or mystery, and the back cover calls it "a Sex in the City for its time." So I never read it. Now I figured I should finally try it. It's good, tells a lot about the era it's from. But it is mostly about romance, and I got so bored. Maybe someday. I do own the book.
March 10, 2016
It feels like FB wrote this while still entertaining delusions of grandeur and before devolving into entirely cray romance novels. Not that I'm complaining. There were just a few too many single-word sentences and hyphens for emphasis for my taste. According to my memory, too, this bears relatively little resemblance to the Barbara Stanwyck movie that followed.
quotable:
"You needn't bother. I don't think we're going to be married." Lynn pushed her small hat even farther off her forehead and sat down limply in the one big chair. "What?" asked Jennie, rising from the couch. "Haven't had a row, have you? What about? Margaret Sanger or the family budget?"
"Well, I wonder," said Jennie, "whether it pays to be a virgin!"
...and one of FB's most convoluted sentences yet:
Small, dark, a youthful man, in whose veins the South European blood retained memories of laughter and knives, slow hot sunlight and twisted vines dripping the purple, hazy flesh of grapes, he stood in a swaying car and, as it slid to a stop, reached out a swarthy hand and touched the mechanical contrivance which opens a cage and lets forth an amorphous mass of human beings; a mass which, upon reaching the platform, resolved itself into separately moving, breathing, sometimes thinking, atoms.
quotable:
"You needn't bother. I don't think we're going to be married." Lynn pushed her small hat even farther off her forehead and sat down limply in the one big chair. "What?" asked Jennie, rising from the couch. "Haven't had a row, have you? What about? Margaret Sanger or the family budget?"
"Well, I wonder," said Jennie, "whether it pays to be a virgin!"
...and one of FB's most convoluted sentences yet:
Small, dark, a youthful man, in whose veins the South European blood retained memories of laughter and knives, slow hot sunlight and twisted vines dripping the purple, hazy flesh of grapes, he stood in a swaying car and, as it slid to a stop, reached out a swarthy hand and touched the mechanical contrivance which opens a cage and lets forth an amorphous mass of human beings; a mass which, upon reaching the platform, resolved itself into separately moving, breathing, sometimes thinking, atoms.
October 26, 2016
If you enjoy the melodramatic movies of the 1930's and 40's, you will enjoy this novel by Faith Baldwin. In fact, the movie Skyscraper Souls was based on this novel. Leonard Maltin gave it 3 out of 4 stars. Hollywood, however, didn't follow the book properly.The story focuses on the people who work at the tallest new skyscraper in Manhattan. There are young lovers. Models who don't mind being "supported". Salesmen trying to play the system. Married men playing the women. An older women trying to guide the younger women. Due to the depression, women supporting their husbands. And of course, a rich shyster of a lawyer trying cheat in the stock market and control a young woman who is new to the big city. Great novel from the 1930's!!
May 9, 2015
Baldwin's Skyscraper is a look back at a very different world. That major plot points hinge on whether or not she'll be allowed to keep her job once she's married, and whether or not her future husband will let her work seems ridiculous by modern standards, but was a very real concern when Baldwin was writing. For what is basically a period romance, this was better than I expected. Lynn is, perhaps, more than a little naïve, but her strong passion for her job and her loyalty to her friends is endearing. As long as you can get past or find humor in the outdated attitudes, this is pretty interesting.
July 4, 2008
Was hoping it'd be a pre-code movie in a book, but no Stanwyck charisma to be found. Regardless: visions of thirties working gals will dance in your head.
February 22, 2010
I'm not actually reading this, but Manhattan Nights which is out of print. I have some of her books and it's fun to reread her occasionally.
March 30, 2009
Pulp at its best!
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November 5, 2024I started Skyscraper by Faith Baldwin a the end of August. It was originally published 1931 as a serial in Cosmopolitan magazine and according to the synopsis, is a Sex and the City for its time. It follows Lynn who works for an insurance company in New York in a skyscraper. It follows her personal life, her romance with Tom, who also works in the building, her friendship with model & roommate, Jenny, who works on an upper floor and also her developing relationship with successful lawyer, Dylan. So that's it, or that's as far as I got into the story when I decided that I wasn't all that interested in Lynn's personal life.
It's not poorly written and does provide a perspective of the 30's but I'm afraid I wasn't that interested in the subject matter. It's part of the Femmes Fatales catalogue. I've read other books and enjoyed but this one will be set aside. Read 100 pages, No Rating (NR)
It's not poorly written and does provide a perspective of the 30's but I'm afraid I wasn't that interested in the subject matter. It's part of the Femmes Fatales catalogue. I've read other books and enjoyed but this one will be set aside. Read 100 pages, No Rating (NR)
January 28, 2022
Good choice for a Feminist Press reprint, originally serialized “pulp” novel focusing on several women office workers in NYC during the early years of the Great Depression. Certainly melodramatic undertones but not the stereotypical heroine rescued by marriage plot. Work is mundane but identity as a worker is liberating. The central female character establishes something that comes pretty close to a truly egalitarian relationship. Female friendship is genuine and necessary. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it, even though some of the prose was a bit too overwrought.
November 3, 2010
Overall, for books I've had to read for school, this wasn't too terrible.
Want to read
June 30, 2021This book was filmed as Skyscraper Souls in 1932.
May 15, 2024
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Although Baldwin sets the scene describing the myriad of people, the hustle and bustle of the big city, and many facets of life within a modern New York city building, the story quickly follows Lynn Harding at the Seacoast Bank. Her beau works in the company and her friend Jennie models in a fashion house upstairs. They are besotted with each other and spend a lot of time repeatedly loving, fighting, splitting up, and making up. Living first in an uptight woman's hotel, she moves in with Jennie despite her loose, fast life - there is also the seamy side as Jennie decides to be a kept woman to a wealthy married man. Lynn also meets a rich man from the top of society, who's lavish entertaining with the upper class who's who could be exciting enough to lure Lynn away. Scandal comes when one of them leaks insider bank information, causing potential disaster in a market crash.
This is 1931, and is a light and entertaining look at women's choices at the time. Lynn believes in her work and steadfastly chooses it over romance - her Aunt-like superior is also a career woman who long ago decided to remain single. Jennie represents the other path open to women - besides marriage and career - a mistress. It goes on a little too long at 319 pages, but interesting all the way. This was made into a film starring Warren William and Maureen O'Sullivan called Skyscraper Souls in 1932, available to stream free online. It has all the same characters as the novel, but naturally changes the story by moving the main characters Lynn and Jennie into the background, and placing the bank president at the fore, turning it into a story about insider trading and stock markets.
Although Baldwin sets the scene describing the myriad of people, the hustle and bustle of the big city, and many facets of life within a modern New York city building, the story quickly follows Lynn Harding at the Seacoast Bank. Her beau works in the company and her friend Jennie models in a fashion house upstairs. They are besotted with each other and spend a lot of time repeatedly loving, fighting, splitting up, and making up. Living first in an uptight woman's hotel, she moves in with Jennie despite her loose, fast life - there is also the seamy side as Jennie decides to be a kept woman to a wealthy married man. Lynn also meets a rich man from the top of society, who's lavish entertaining with the upper class who's who could be exciting enough to lure Lynn away. Scandal comes when one of them leaks insider bank information, causing potential disaster in a market crash.
This is 1931, and is a light and entertaining look at women's choices at the time. Lynn believes in her work and steadfastly chooses it over romance - her Aunt-like superior is also a career woman who long ago decided to remain single. Jennie represents the other path open to women - besides marriage and career - a mistress. It goes on a little too long at 319 pages, but interesting all the way. This was made into a film starring Warren William and Maureen O'Sullivan called Skyscraper Souls in 1932, available to stream free online. It has all the same characters as the novel, but naturally changes the story by moving the main characters Lynn and Jennie into the background, and placing the bank president at the fore, turning it into a story about insider trading and stock markets.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews