Articles from 1948
ESPIONAGE is big business in Berlin and has it’s painstaking, pecuniary bureaucracy. It is practiced by small fry (who is willing to procure for you anything from the latest deployment plan of the Red Army to a lock of Hitler’s hair) and by big-time operators who deal nonchalantly and lucratively in international secrets.
Berlin Becomes the Center of Global Espionage (See Magazine, 1948) Read More »
This is a 1948 Soviet poster that foreign correspondents of the day reported as having been widely distributed across the Worker’s Paradise. A veiled piece of patriotic pageantry, it was clearly intended to intimidate the Western democracies; it made its appearance a few weeks into the Berlin Blockade (June, 1948 – May, 1949) – an international stunt that gained the Soviets nothing.
From Amazon:
Iconography of Power: Soviet Political Posters Under Lenin and Stalin
A Warning to the West (Pathfinder Magazine, 1948) Read More »
Illustrated with seven photographs, article was written some three years after the close of the war and reported on the efforts of the Allied Armies and local police authorities globally to track-down some 10,000 deserters from the U.S. Army. In the mid-fifties the Department of the Army had estimated that the total number of deserters from all branches of the American military added up to 21,000, but in 1948 the army was happy just to find these 10,000 men: the numeric equivalent of an entire division.
The article is composed of short, choppy paragraphs that present for the reader some of the more interesting stories of World War II desertion. A good read.
The Deserters from the U.S. Army (See Magazine, 1948) Read More »
This article, I’m an Adopted Mother, by Hollywood movie actress Joan Crawford (1905 – 1977) rambles on column after column about her four adopted children and the tremendous fulfillment they brought to her life. It was all a bunch of hooey, and we might have ended up believing it all, if it weren’t for her daughter Christine, who, in 1978, published a bestselling memoir testifying to the beatings that the movie star could be depended upon to deliver regularly; a first edition of the book is available at Amazon – it was titled Mommy Dearest
Mother of the Year: Joan Crawford (Photoplay Magazine, 1948) Read More »
At the time this article appeared on the pages of COLLIER’S MAGAZINE, the Fashion Group was already over twenty years old and in need of more office space.
Established in 1928 by the crowned-heads of the American fashion industry, it was decided that the dominate fashionistas ‘needed a forum, a stage, or a force to express and enhance a widening awareness of the American fashion business and of women’s roles in that business. This article points out that there were present in that room on that historic day a smattering of women who toiled in the vineyards as fashion journalists and collectively it was understood that the two groups very much relied upon each other.
The Fashion Group was established in order to:
judge trends by watching sales figures, which indicate which fashions are on the wane and which are gaining favor. They travel around to see what we do, and therefore, what we need.
Today, the Fashion Group has offices in every major American city as well as branches in the fashion capitols of Europe, South America and Asia.
The Fashion Group (Collier’s Magazine, 1948) Read More »
A printable article from a 1948 Hollywood fan magazine that illustrated quite clearly how much easier Ronald Reagan had it with the Soviet Union, when compared to his failings with his first bride, Jane Wyman (1917 – 2007). The PHOTOPLAY journalist, Gladys Hall, outlined nicely how busy the couple had been up to that time yet remarked that they had had a difficult time since the war ended, breaking-up and reconciling as many as three times. In 1948 Wyman, who had been married twice before, filed for divorce on charges of mental cruelty; the divorce was finalized in ’49 and the future president went on to meet Nancy Davis in 1951 (marrying in ’52); click here if you wish to read a 1951 article about that courtship.
Historically, Ronald Reagan was the first divorced man to ascend the office of the presidency. Shortly after his death in 2004, Wyman remarked:
America has lost a great president and a great, kind, and gentle man.
Click here read an article about Hollywood’s war on monogamy.
The Ronald Reagan-Jane Wyman Crack-Up (Photoplay Magazine, 1948) Read More »
Knowing, as they did, that the Broadway composer Oscar Hammerstein II (1895 – 1960) was no slouch when it came to writing hummable tunes with snappy lyrics, hundreds of people would write to him daily seeking advice as to how they might be able to do the same (indeed, the search logs at Google indicate that this question is asked 369,000 times each month). No doubt fed-up with these never ending solicitations – Hammerstein penned this article, What Makes Songs Popular: in four pages he spewed-forth all that he knew about writing music and lyrics:
It seems to me that the most important element in a lyric is subject matter. A song had better be about something fundamental – which is why so many songs are about love.
must have been fed up with answering the hundreds of letters that he received daily begging him for tips as to how best to write songs and lyrics – he turned to the editors of ’48 MAGAZINE who were happy to print his article in which answered those questions
What Makes Songs Popular (’48 Magazine, 1948) Read More »
On the twenty-first of March, 1947, President Harry Truman signed into law Executive Order 9835 which was intended to remove communists and their assorted apologists from working in the Federal Government.
Unfortunately the President hadn’t issued a working definition as to what was loyal and what was disloyal and the results of the decree were predictable. The attached editorial was penned by a seasoned Washington journalist who had collected an agglomeration of anecdotal evidence during the first year of its enforcement in order to illustrate the inherent difficulties created as a result of the order. He pointed out that Truman’s order simply granted carte blanche to the F.B.I., called into question the rights of government workers and created a Loyalty Review Board that was cumbersome and bureaucratic.
The Problem with Loyalty Oaths (’48 Magazine, 1948) Read More »
The Berlin Blockade was already six weeks old when this article appeared proclaiming that peace with the Soviet Union was still possible:
Russia and the U.S. are in the midst of another showdown on peace. Odds favor a settlement, not war.
Peace terms are shifting closer to compromise. Russia is more interested in seeking peace, less interested in stalling… Each side is out to get the best possible terms. But prospects for easing the tension of cold war are good.
Click here to read about the Berlin Blockade.
Can There be Peace with Stalin? (United States News & World Report, 1948) Read More »
