Articles from 1929
A brief column from an American magazine that lucidly explained the mounting frustrations within 1920s Canada concerning the influx of Chinese immigrants to that country.
Click here to read about the Canadian POWs who collaborated with the Nazis.
‘A Plan to Make Chinese Canadians” (Literary Digest, 1929) Read More »
The advent of talking pictures has enormously increased the number of those who vision a fairyland of fame and fortune if they can only reach Hollywood… Rumor had it that voice was important for the new Talkies, and every female whose misguided family had ‘cultivated’ Mamie’s vocal resources, usually without the faintest reasonable excuse, realized where her destiny lay. The rush was on… Several organizations in Hollywood find it possible to send girls back home before the tragedy point is reached… Periodically the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce broadcasts warnings.
‘STAY HOME!” (Hollywood Magazine, 1929) Read More »
Robert Littell reviewed the first New York production of Journey’s End by former infantry officer, R.C. Sherriff (1896 – 1975: 9th East Surrey Regiment, 1915 – 1918). We have also included a paragraph from a British critic named W.A. Darlington who had once fought in the trenches and approaches the drama from the angle of a veteran:
Click here if you would like to read another article about the WW I play Journey’s End.
JOURNEY’S END by R.C. Sheriff (Theatre Arts Magazine, 1929) Read More »
With the widespread complaints on the rise from the football fans on the sidelines that they were completely in the dark as to why a play was called, the elders of the sport decided that action had to be taken to remedy the growing confusion…
Hence a system of signals has been devised whereby the officials on the field can let the people in the stand know what is what. A gesture of the arm by the field official will immediately telegraph to the stands that Whoozis College’s penalty was for slugging. Another wave will inform the inquisitive public that the forward pass was incomplete by being grounded.
The article is illustrated with eight photographs of assorted football penalty hand signals; none of the gestures have stood the test of time – the penalties have remained but today different signals indicate each infraction.
The Very First Football Referee Hand Signals (Literary Digest, 1929) Read More »
Myths After Lincoln
The myth of Lincoln’s funeral train appearing as an apparition once a year is discussed, as are the legends that John Wilkes Boothe, like Elvis, survived the Virginia barn fire, where he is believed to have died and escaped into the Western territories.
Myths About Lincoln (Literary Digest, 1929) Read More »
Making his bow to the nation with the praise of the Anti-Saloon League and of Andrew J. Volstead, father of the Prohibition law, ringing in his years, Mr. Youngquist (1885 – 1959) was quick to announce that
I am dry politically and personally, but I am not a fanatic on the subject.
The New Guy Who Took Her Place (Literary Digest, 1929) Read More »
A report from The Literary Digest revealed that only one man out of every nine attended Sunday services with any regularity in 1929. The article quotes one wounded clergymen who predicted doom for the American culture as a whole, and interviewed an assorted number of church-goers of the male variety who offered a number sound reasons to attend weekly services, none of them having anything to do with the Gospels. However 317 out of 320 interviewed all concurred that their participation helps them attain a sense of the presence of God in their lives.
Click here to read an article from 1900 about why men dislike going to church.
Male Church Attendance Drops (Literary Digest, 1929) Read More »
This is the 1929 book review of What the Negro Thinks
by Robert Moton (1867 – 1940).
[To the Negro] the white man sometimes seems a bit pathetic in his insistence upon keeping the worth of the Negro hidden, in refusing to recognize skill and talent, honor and virtue, strength and goodness simply because it wears a black skin. To him, the white man’s apparent dread of the Negro is incomprehensible…
What the Negro Thinks (The Bookman, 1929) Read More »
Here is one from the everything old is new again collection. This 1929 article asks whether it was appropriate for schools to fly the American flag, believing as the this one cleric did, that the starry banner is an emblem of war.
Schools Should Not Fly ”An Emblem Of War” (Literary Digest, 1929) Read More »
There are hundreds of stories concerning the life of President Lincoln. Some of them are true and some are not and we’ll leave it up to other websites to decide; among the stories told are the ones that tell the tale of a Lincoln who had dreams of foreboding, dreams that came to him in the night and told of his own demise:
Gradually she drove him into telling of his dream.
‘About ten days ago I retired late. I soon began to dream. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs…I arrived at the East Room, which I entered. Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse, wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards, and there was a throng of people, some gazing mournfully…others weeping pitifully. ‘Who is dead in the White House?’ I demanded of one of the soldiers. ‘The President,’ was his answer. ‘He was killed by an assassin.’ Then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd which awoke me from my from my dream.’
It was argued that slavery in the United States did not end in 1865…
The Prophetic Dreams of Abraham Lincoln (Literary Digest, 1929) Read More »
