1919

Articles from 1919

Joseph Conrad as Interviewed by Hugh Walpole (Vanity Fair, 1919)

Hugh Walpole (1884-1941) interviewed his much admired friend, Joseph Conrad (1884-1941) for the pages of a fashionable American magazine and came away this very intimate and warm column:

There is a mystery first of the man himself– the mystery that the son of a Polish nobleman should run away to sea, learn English from old files of the ‘Standard’ newspapers when he was thirty, toss about the world as an English seaman, finally share with Thomas Hardy the title of the greatest living English novelist— what kind of man can this be?

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Woodrow Wilson and the Repeal of Prohibition (Literary Digest, 1919)

For some in the U.S. Congress and for President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) in particular, the prohibition of alcohol in the United States (passed by Congress on November 1, 1918) was simply viewed as an appropriate war-time measure guaranteed to maintain the productivity of an efficient working class. However, with the First World War coming to a close, President Wilson saw little need in keeping the entire law as it was written, and he suggested allowing the sale and distribution of beer and wine. This article will inform you of the political will of the dry members of congress as well as the strength of the American clergy in 1919

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The Fleecing of Liberators (The Stars and Stripes, 1919)

By the time April of 1919 rolled around, it seemed to the Doughboys who were waiting for that boat to take them back to the good ol’ U.S. of A that their French allies had a short term memory and were terribly ungrateful for American sacrifices made on their behalf. Many post-Armistice letters written by the Doughboys were filled with snide comments about the high prices they were asked to pay for everyday merchandise, prices that seemed to be chosen just for them. Wisely, the Stars and Stripes editors chose not to take sides in this debate but ran this nifty little piece about the manner in which the Americans of 1782 treated their French allies during the American Revolution.


Click here to read about the foreign-born soldiers who served in the American Army of the First World War.

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Arthur B. Davies (Vanity Fair, 1919)

An Arthur B. Davies (1862 – 1928) review written by VANITY FAIR art critic Frederick James Gregg following the opening of an exhibition highlighting the the private collection of N.E. Montross. The critic wrote:

Since the death of Albert Pinkham Ryder (1847 – 1917), Mr. Davies has been recognized, by persons abroad who are familiar with art in America, as the leading living painter on this side of the Atlantic.

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The Third Anniversary of Verdun (The Stars and Stripes, 1919)

1919 marked the third anniversary of the Battle of Verdun and the grounds were still littered with the dead, surrounded by a tons of equipment, lying in open fields pock-marked by thousands of high explosive shells:

Spring will come to France next month, but Spring will not come to the field of Verdun. Already the grass is green on the broad stretches of Champagne; in the Vosges the snow patches linger only in the stubborn shelter of rocks that bar the sun,; but there is no portent of resurrection in all the stretch of churned up gravel marking the line of forts that protect the citadel of the Meuse from the Northeast…the shell holes are filled with clear water, and between them course new born brooks, sublimating in crystal pools from which no man would dare drink.

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U.S. Propaganda Pamphlets Dropped on the Hun (The Stars and Stripes, 1919)

This is a swell read, written in that patois so reminiscent of those fast talking guys in 1930s Hollywood movies. One of the many reasons I find this era so interesting has to do with the fact that the war coincided with that mass-media phenomenon called advertising – and this article pertains exactly to that coincidence. This column was printed shortly after the war in order to let the Doughboys in on the existence of a particular group within the A.E.F. that was charged with the task of dumping propaganda leaflets all over the German trench lines:


Propaganda is nothing but a fancy war name for publicity and who knows the publicity game better than the Yanks?

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