1947

Articles from 1947

Otto Klemperer Conducts Stravinsky (Rob Wagner’s Script, 1947)

A printable music review by Lawrence Morton (1904 – 1987), long time advocate of modern music and habitual contributor to MUSICAL QUARTERLY and MODERN MUSIC. One of Morton’s greatest interests was the music of Stravinsky, and it is Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements that was discussed in this 1947 review:

The symphony opens in full orchestra with a mighty affirmation of confidence and resolution. Then the horns state the main problem with which the composer would confront us: other instruments reiterate it, as if to show it to us from new angles and with new perspectives…

This particular performance was conducted in Los Angeles by Otto Klemperer (1885 – 1973), who was singled out for high praise in this article.

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Is Hollywood Red? (Photoplay Magazine, 1947)

Despite the catchy title, Novelist James M. Cain, did not even attempt to answer the question as to how lousy Hollywood was with dirty Reds, however he did spell out that there were enough of them in the industry to bring production to a halt, if they ever cared to do so. Cain’s article encourages both the executive class and the pinko-wordsmiths to walk the middle path and keep the cameras rolling.

Click here to read a review of James M. Cain’s novel, The Butterfly.

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Frank Lloyd Wright Hated the U.N. Building (Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1947)

When architects and builders howled in protest when the firm of Wallace Harrison (1895 – 1981)was commissioned in 1947 to design the United Nations Center in New York City, the editors of SCRIPT MAGAZINE dashed off asking Frank Lloyd Wright to pick up his quill and ink-up his arguments against the project – and here it is.

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Her Life Since Leaving the White House (’47 Magazine, 1947)

Attached is a 1947 article that reported on the post-FDR life of The Widow Roosevelt since assuming the position of the United States delegate to the newly established United Nations:

Mrs Roosevelt’s performance during the first session of the U.N. General Assembly in London during the winter of 1946 surprised and pleased even those who had once been her husband’s most bitter foes.

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Suffering A W.W. II Head Wound (’47 Magazine, 1947)

When Joe Martin received a shrapnel wound to the head it affected that region of his brain that processes language. He spent a good deal of time in military hospitals trying to regain his lost ability to communicate, as he articulated clearly in the attached article:

He then held up a pencil in front of me and asked, ‘Joe, what is this?’

I heard myself reply, ‘A paddle’.

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Klaus Grabe (Pathfinder Magazine, 1947)

An article from 1947 that clearly indicated that modern furnishings were a commercial hit in New York City during the immediate period following the war. The furnishings in particular were the product of German modernist named Klaus Grabe. A refugee from Hitler’s Germany, Grabe was a Bauhaus-educated designer who had first settled in Mexico with Josef Albers before moving to New York.

Shortly after this article appeared, Klaus Grabe would write this book: Build Your Own Modern Furniturestyle=border:none.

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Comrade Spy (Pathfinder Magazine, 1947)

Fingered as the premier Soviet agent working in the United States by a former communist and editor of THE DAILY WORKER and PEOPLE’S WORLD, Gerhart Eisler (1897 – 1968) – was arrested in the Fall of 1947 and charged with espionage.


Standing before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Eisler refused to take the oath, preferring instead to read a prepared statement. The committee refused to play along and the Justice Department soon leveled Eisler with additional charges. By 1949 things were looking dark for Eisler; jumping bail he made good his escape and secured passage across the Atlantic. Welcomed in East Germany as a hero, Eisler was soon named director of East German radio and became a prominent voice for the Communist government.

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Spotlight on U.S. Schools in the Late Forties (Pathfinder Magazine, 1947)

One can’t but help but cry a little when reading that the Americans of 1947 actually believed that their public school system was substandard; they had no idea the depths this same system would be thrust just thirty years hence. The Forties was a time when most school teachers believed that the school’s biggest problem was talking in the classroom or lingering in the halls. However, this article lists the ten firsts that both state and Federal governments had initiated in order to make a fine education system better.

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Son of ”Fast Facts” (’47 Magazine, 1947)

To be sure, the motion pictures that Hollywood produced during the late teens were very self-conscious, but they were beginning to develop smartness…
Los Angeles and its environs were crowded with new motion picture companies. The American Film Company, the Vitagraph Company, the Universal Company Christie Comedies and Selig found competitors springing up like weeds after rain: the demand for flickers was enjoying its first boom.

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