1940

Articles from 1940

Mickey Rooney, RIP (Collier’s Magazine, 1940)

In 1940 Mickey Rooney (né Joe Yule, Jr.; b. 1920 – 2014) had replaced Shirley Temple as the number one box-office draw, after having steadily performed before the cameras from the age of six onward. Rooney had been jockeying for first place since he began playing the title roll in the Andy Hardy films just two and a half years earlier.


With the onslaught of the Second World War the sands of Hollywood shifted beneath his feet, creating a plethora of new stars and the need for different sorts of films – from that point on he only appeared in supporting rolls. In 1982 Rooney remarked:

When I was 19 years old, I was the number one star of the world for two years. When I was 40, nobody wanted me. I couldn’t get a job.

Mickey Rooney, RIP (Collier’s Magazine, 1940) Read More »

Red Tactics in Hollywood (Photoplay Magazine, 1940)

American political parties have not been the only folks to visit Beverly Hills – hat-in-hand; Soviet-backed Reds have done it, too. This 1940 article goes into some detail explaining all the various false fronts that American Communists would erect in order to attract Hollywood’s empathetic pretty boys – a tribe that is so easily separated from their wealth. Once an actor was hooked, they were steadily relied upon by the Reds to cough-up the do-re-mi without question; if they didn’t – they got the works.

Walter Winchell has already passed on to Washington documentary evidence proving that thousands of dollars contributed by Hollywood to innocent-sounding organizations eventually wound up in the hands of Communist leaders. Police and other investigatory groups have gone about accumulating evidence of the conspiracy.


One of the many Communist-front advocacy groups that milked Hollywood of much of its wealth was called theIndependent Citizen’s Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions; actress Olivia de Havilland was one of their willing dupes until she worked with the FBI and helped to bring them down.

Red Tactics in Hollywood (Photoplay Magazine, 1940) Read More »

FDR’s Third Term: Vox Populi (Pathfinder Magazine, 1940)

Here are the results of PATHFINDER MAGAZINE‘s 1940 poll concerning FDR’s controversial run for a third term. The pollsters were interested in discovering the voter’s thoughts on the third term as a concept for future presidents – rather than gaining a better understanding as to the popularity of President Roosevelt.


The poll considered the opinions of citizens who voted for FDR in 1936 and those who sided with Republican Alf Landon in the same election. They concluded that 68.6% of poll’s participants were against a third presidential term.

FDR’s Third Term: Vox Populi (Pathfinder Magazine, 1940) Read More »

The Biz (Pathfinder Magazine, 1940)

Pulled from the business section of a 1940 issue of PATHFINDER MAGAZINE was this list of Hollywood statistics that should be of interest to all you old movie fans. If you’ve ever wondered how the Dream Factory fared following the Great Depression, you can stop scratching your head bone – herein you will learn how many souls were on Hollywood’s payroll, how many movies did the town make each year (give or take), what percentage of global film production was turned out by Hollywood and how many American movie theaters were there in 1940.

The Biz (Pathfinder Magazine, 1940) Read More »

The Great Native-American Athletes of the Early 20th Century (American Legion Magazine, 1940)

Idolized, publicized, dramatized, picturesque members of a fast diminishing aboriginal race, they were the white man’s heroes. But the white man’s adulations and his indulgences helped write ‘finis’ prematurely on the records of some of them even as his vices quickened the racial degeneration of their stock.

Sockalexis, Thorpe, Bender, Longboat and Meyers! There were scores of other notable Indian athletes from ’93 to 1915, but the names of those five were household words in the early days of the new century.

The Great Native-American Athletes of the Early 20th Century (American Legion Magazine, 1940) Read More »

Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indians (American Legion Magazine, 1940)

This football article recounts the glory days of Jim Thorpe (1888 – 1953) and his Carlisle football team as well as a number of other Native-American jocks of lesser fame who were active in other sports during the same time period.

A remarkable all-around athlete, Jim Thorpe at Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania was a whiz at reversing his field or skirting an end, and there was bonecrunching power behind his charges into the line. He could punt with any of them and was a good drop kicker. But it was as a place kicker that he was really tops. He rarely missed one.


We recommend this unique college football site…

Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indians (American Legion Magazine, 1940) Read More »

The Designs of Gustav Jensen (Coronet Magazine, 1940)

High-Ranking in the roll-call of New York’s industrial designer is a six-foot Dane with the voice of a Viking. Gustav Jensen is an artist, whether he is talking, eating, or performing Herculean labors in cleaning out Plebeian Stables. The creed of the industrial designer is that every implement of modern life can be made into a work of art. Jensen has pursued this creed to fabulous extremes. He has designed kitchen sinks, that have been compared to Renaissance caskets, and he meditates for months before he designs a doorknob….


The article is illustrated with eleven photographs; the image on the right shows Jensen’s design for a table model radio: The radio is a miracle. It should look like a miracle, remarked the designer.

The Designs of Gustav Jensen (Coronet Magazine, 1940) Read More »

In Defense of Modern Architecture (Coronet Magazine, 1940)

Living, as he did, at a time when the average American homeowner was more inclined to prefer a ranch house over a machine for living that those vulgar, snail-eating European modernists were capable of creating, American architect George Frederick Keck (1895 – 1980) saw fit to write this spirited defense on behalf of modern design. Playing the part of a modernist missionary seeking to convert the heathens, Keck argued that his tribe of architects – with their understanding of contemporary building materials and respect for simplicity – were suited to create a better standard of living for one and all.

In Defense of Modern Architecture (Coronet Magazine, 1940) Read More »