Articles from 1920
A short notice reporting on the one pride and joy of the U.S. Army Air Service, the Verville Packard, and how this one aircraft performed at the Pulitzer Trophy Airplane Race of 1920. The article is illustrated with a photo of the plane and the aviator, Lt. C.C. Mosley, who piloted the craft at the impressive speed of 156.5 mph.
The Verville Packard Battle Plane: 178 Miles Per Hour (The Independent, 1920) Read More »
A profile of Futurist composer Leo Ornstein (1893 – 2002). Ornstein appeared on the New York music scene at a very young age; hailed as a genius by many, he performed to packed houses. In 1917, music critic James Huneker(1860-1921) remarked:
I never thought I should live to hear Arnold Schoenberg sound tame, yet tame he sounds—almost timid and halting—after Ornstein who is, most emphatically, the only true-blue, genuine, Futurist composer alive.
Leo Ornstein left the public eye by 1925 and was soon forgotten until the 1970s. This Vanity Fair article was written by James L. Buchanan, who had written a number of pieces on Ornstein and his music throughout his career.
Composer Leo Ornstein (Vanity Fair, 1920) Read More »
Like a lot a guys, Vladimir Lenin said many nice things about feminism, but, alas, all his sympathetic talk just blended in with all the other Utopian promises he made – and couldn’t deliver.
‘The Emancipation of Women in Soviet Russia” (Soviet Russia Magazine, 1919) Read More »
The measure is not intended as a basis for permanent immigration policy, but simply as an emergency injunction to halt immigration until Congress… can determine the policy it wishes to adopt
Anti-Immigration Legislation (The Independent, 1920) Read More »
Here are a few French thoughts regarding America’s late arrival in the war and some additional opinions on the matter of Uncle Sam’s inflated ego.
Click here to read an article by a grateful Frenchman who was full of praise for the bold and forward-thinking manner in which America entered the First World War.
Post-War French Opinions About Their American Allies (Literary Digest, 1920) Read More »
Perhaps in his haste to be the reliable cynic, H.L. Mencken (1880 – 1956) decided to ignore the haphazard nature of industrial warfare and indulged in some Darwinian thinking. There is no doubt that this column must have infuriated the Gold Star Mothers of W.W. I, who were still very much a presence at the time this opinion piece appeared, and it can also be assumed that the veterans of The American Legion were also shocked to read Mencken’s words declaring that:
The American Army came home substantially as it went abroad. Some of the weaklings were left behind, true enough, but surely not all of them. But the French and German Armies probably left them all behind. The Frenchman who got through those bitter four years was certainly a Frenchman far above the average in vigor and intelligence…
Odd Post-War Thinking from H.L. Mencken (The Smart Set, 1920) Read More »
There aren’t many Yanks in Turkey but an American naval force of eight destroyers is being kept in Turkish waters to protect American interests and to assist the British, French and Italian navies before Constantinople to induce compliance by Turkey with the terms of the peace treaty and to serve as a warning to cease her practices against the Armenians in Asia Minor.
The U.S. Occupation of Turkey (Pathfinder Magazine, 1920) Read More »
One of the most sinister results of the war has been a new wave of anti-Semitism in Europe. Recent dispatches from Berlin describe street demonstrations against Jews and speak of a veritable pogrom atmosphere in Munich and Budapest. In Poland, Jewish blood has flown freely, amid scenes of horror described by Herman Bernstein and other writers in American newspapers. In Ukraine the number of Jews massacred during the early part of the present year is estimated anywhere from 40,000 to 100,000.
Eastern European Jews Slaughtered (Current Opinion, 1920) Read More »
This is a very interesting magazine article concerning the 1920s British experience in Iraq (Mesopotamia); regardless as to where the reader stands concerning the 2003 Iraq War, you will find a striking similarity in the language used in this piece and the articles printed prior to the U.S. infantry surge of 2008:
Unless there is a complete change of policy, Mesopotamia, which has been the grave of empires, is now likely to be the grave of the Coalition.
Click here to read more articles about the British struggle for 1920s Mesopotamia.
‘Troublesome Mesopotamia” (Literary Digest, 1920) Read More »
The editors of VANITY FAIR saluted the eighty year-old painter Claude Monet, praising him as
the only remaining member of a little group of painters – Degas, Manet, Renoir and several others – known as the Master Impressionists.
Claude Monet at the Age of Eighty (Vanity Fair, 1920) Read More »
