1948

Articles from 1948

When W.W. II Came to Hollywood (Photoplay Magazine, 1948)

The attached article is but a small segment addressing the history of Hollywood during the war W.W. II years; clipped from a longer Photoplay Magazine piece that recounted the illustrious past of Hollywood some thirty-five years earlier.

After Pearl Harbor, the men really began leaving town. David Niven was gone now. So too, was Flight Officer Laurence Olivier. And more and more from the Hollywood ranks kept leaving. Gable, Fonda, Reagan, the well-knowns and the lesser-knowns. Power, Taylor, Payne, Skelton and many others…More Hollywood regulars went away, so other, newer newcomers had to be found to replace them because the box office was booming.

When W.W. II Came to Hollywood (Photoplay Magazine, 1948) Read More »

In Defense of President Hoover (Pathfinder Magazine, 1948)

Attached is a small excerpt from the Pathfinder review of Eugene Lyons’ book, Our Unknown Ex-President (1948). The author outlined the various measures taken by the Hoover administration during the earliest years of the Great Depression in hopes that the flood waters would subside:


He fought for banking reform laws, appropriations for public works, home-loan banks to protect farms and residences. He asked for millions for relief to be administered by state and local organizations… A Democratic Congress refused to heed his suggestions.


Yet, regardless of the various missteps made by Hoover and FDR, the United States remailed an enormously wealthy nation…

In Defense of President Hoover (Pathfinder Magazine, 1948) Read More »

Beautiful Girls Wanted (Coronet Magazine, 1948)

American advertising struck pay dirt when it discovered the super salesgirls whose irresistible allure will sell anything from a bar of soap to a seagoing yacht…Always there was the secret whisper of sex. For women it was, ‘Be lovely, be loved, don’t grow old, be exciting’… For men it was, ‘Be successful, make everyone know that your successful, how can you get women if your not successful?’

Beautiful Girls Wanted (Coronet Magazine, 1948) Read More »

Beautiful Girls Wanted (Coronet Magazine, 1948)

American advertising struck pay dirt when it discovered the super salesgirls whose irresistible allure will sell anything from a bar of soap to a seagoing yacht…Always there was the secret whisper of sex. For women it was, ‘Be lovely, be loved, don’t grow old, be exciting’… For men it was, ‘Be successful, make everyone know that your successful, how can you get women if your not successful?’

Beautiful Girls Wanted (Coronet Magazine, 1948) Read More »

‘Panic in Hollywood” (’48 Magazine, 1948)

The years 1947 and 1948 was a rough patch for Hollywood – and journalist James Felton did a favor for all those geeky film historians yet unborn for documenting their myriad travails in the attached article. Aside from a major drop in box-office receipts, the most time consuming inconvenience involved U.S. Representative J. Parnell Thomas (1895 – 1970) and his cursed House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) that threatened to reduce their profits to a further degree.

‘Panic in Hollywood” (’48 Magazine, 1948) Read More »

The ”Unsinkable” Titanic (’48 Magazine, 1948)

Award winning word-smith Hanson W. Baldwin (1903 – 1991) wrote this tight little essay some 64 years after the Titanic sinking. He succinctly pieced together the events of that day (April 12, 1912) and clearly indicated that there was plenty of blame to go around for the tremendous loss of life; not simply the Grand Poobahs in the senior positions (Captain Smith and Bruce Ismay) but the small fries as well (such as Second Radio Operator Harold McBride). By the second page, Baldwin commences with an hour by hour break-down of the events on-board TITANIC until she made her final plunge into the deep:

12:30 a.m. The word is passed: ‘Women and children in the boats’. Stewards finish waking passengers below; life-preservers are tied on; some men smile at the precaution.
‘The Titanic is unsinkable.’

The ”Unsinkable” Titanic (’48 Magazine, 1948) Read More »

President Truman and Civil Rights (Commonweal, 1948)

When President Truman’s Committee on Civil Rights submitted their findings to the White House in December of 1947, the anxious and skeptical editors at COMMONWEAL MAGAZINE eagerly waited their conclusions. Knowing that this Southern president was the only Klansman (1924 membership) to have ever attained such high office, they were doubtful that any good would come of it, and in this column they explain why they felt that way.


Four years later an article was written about the gratitude many African-Americans felt toward President Truman and his stand on civil rights – read it here…

President Truman and Civil Rights (Commonweal, 1948) Read More »

They Molded the American Mind (’48 Magazine, 1948)

In 1948 the American history professor Henry Steele Commager (1902 – 1998) read this article that named the most powerful men in Cold War Washington – he then began to compose a list of his own, a list that he felt was far more permanent in nature. Commager wrote the names of the most influential thinkers of the past 100 years, leaders and writers who he credited for having supplied us with our symbols, our values, our ideas and ideals.

They Molded the American Mind (’48 Magazine, 1948) Read More »