The American composer pens the first bars of his opera Merry Mount on the personal stationery card of a news editor.

Merry Mount (1934) is widely considered the first fully American opera: it was written by an American composer and an American librettist, tells the story of a Puritan settlement in Massachusetts, and was premiered at the Metropolitan Opera. Although popular with its first audiences, the work received mixed reviews and never gained a lasting place in the repertory. It was Hanson's only opera.