1920

Articles from 1920

Nietzsche and World War One (Sewanee Review, 1920)

In this 1920 article the theologian George Burman Foster (1858 – 1918), examined the writings of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900) and surmised how that philosopher might have understood the First World War, with all of it’s scientific and industrial power.

War constitutes one of of those dangerous ‘experiments’ undertaken by the wise man to further the progress of life, to test the value of an idea, of life. Hence, war is beneficial, good in itself; and thus Nietzsche predicts without dismay or regret that Europe is not far from entering into a period of great wars when nations will fight with one another for the mastery of the world.


Click here to read about the Nazi interpretation of Nietzsche.

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Father Francis Duffy of the Fighting 69th (The Bookman, 1920)

Father Francis P. Duffy (1874 – 1932) was the well-loved regimental chaplain for the illustrious, old New York infantry regiment known as the Fighting 69th.


Next time you find yourself walking near Times Square in New York City, you’ll see a statue erected in his memory situated behind a statue of the popular songster who composed Over There – George M. Cohan (1878 – 1942). These memorials will be found at Broadway and 7th Avenue (between 46th & 47th streets). Both men knew the neighborhood well – to Cohan it was known as the Theater District while Duffy knew it as Hell’s Kitchen, and it was his parish.


The Bookman reviewed Duffy’s memoirstyle=border:none as a book which carries A.E.F. readers back to lousy, old French barns, to chilly, soupy Argonne mud and, at last, to a wintry Rhineland….


You can can read more about Father Duffy’s war here…


Click here to read articles about W.W. I poetry.

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The Fear of the ‘Nipponification’ (The Independent, 1920)

Interesting figures revealed by the U.S. Census Bureau in 1920 served to relieve much of the race-conscious anxiety among some of the members of the Anglo-Saxon majority:

The report of the Census Bureau on the number of Japanese residents in the United States shows that the number has been much exaggerated by those panic-stricken persons who affect to dread the rise of a new Japan in America…the Japanese population of the three states on the Pacific coast increased more slowly from 1910 to 1920than it did in the previous decade. There are 70,196 Japanese in California, which has a total population of 3,426,861; in other words about one Californian in every fifty is a Japanese.

The U.S. Census figures for 2011 indicated that the Asian-American population numbered over 17 million, with the lion’s share still residing in the West and the vast majority having arrived after 1965.

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Upholstery in the Finest Luxury Cars of 1920 (Vogue Magazine, 1920)

A magazine article which examines the automotive upholstery styles of cars that were made for the general public (stock cars) and those other cars that were custom made and likely to be furnished with Dictaphones and vanity cases.

As for materials, it may be said that most of the custom-built cars are upholstered in broadcloth or whipcord, whereas the stock cars show prevailingly velours, mohair velvet and the textile known as automobile cloth.

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A Love Letter to Lenin (Soviet Russia Magazine, 1920)

Sweet, sweet words from British socialist George Lansbury (1859 – 1940) concerning his first encounter with the Soviet dictator Vladimir Lenin:

He is about 50 years old, of medium height and carries himself with a slight stoop. He has fine eyes, which look you straight in the face, sometimes with a whimsical expression, as if he were trying to discover if anything unexpressed lay behind your words. They have, too, an expression of careful kindness; and you put him down as a man who musty love children.

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Erich von Stroheim: an Immigrant’s Story (Motion Picture Magazine, 1920)

Silent movie legend Erich von Stroheim (1885 – 1957) gave an account of his life and career in this 1920 interview printed in Motion Picture Magazine. The article touches upon von Stroheim’s roll as producer for the movie Blind Husbands (1919), but primarily concentrates on his pre-Hollywood life and his disappointment with the provincial nature of American films.

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A Visit to the Grave of Rupert Brooke (The London Mercury, 1920)

Attached is an account by a learned traveler who journeyed to that one piece of ground on the isle of Skyros that will forever be England – the grave of the English poet Rupert Brooke (1887 – 1915). The literati who wrote the attached article went to great lengths imparting the significance of Skyros throughout all antiquity and it’s meaning to the world of letters – credited only as S. Casson, he informed his readers that he arrived on the island five years after the 1915 internment in order to erect the headstone that is currently in place, describing the shepherds and other assorted rustics in some detail while alluding tirelessly to the works of Homer.

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