Articles from 1949
A one page history regarding the unprecedented swearing-in ceremonies of the four-term President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882 – 1945).
Read a 1933 article about FDR and the disaster that he tried to fix…
The Four Inaugurations of F.D.R. (from the Truman Inaugural Program, 1949) Read More »
Pieced together from the captain’s log as well as various first-hand observations that were called to mind by the 29 surviving crew members, this article presents a blow-by-blow account as to how the U.S. Navy dirigible Shenandoah was overwhelmed by turbulent winds over Eastern Ohio and torn in two.
As they climbed into the hull, the ship began spinning counter-clockwise on its keel, then lifted its nose and shot upward. Girders groaned and wires snapped. Then came a crunching, sickening roar as the girders parted. The ship had broken in two. Another rending crash and the control car plunged earthwards, carrying Lt. Commander Landsdowne and seven other men to their death.
The Destruction of the Shenandoah (Coronet Magazine, 1949) Read More »
In an attempt to define modernism for a broad audience, architect/designer Alexander Girard curated the Exhibition for Modern Living
Modern design implies shape for use, simplicity, new forms to utilize new materials, easier housekeeping, and honest expression of mass production… Up the richly carpeted ramp, viewers walk up to a dining room done by Alvar Aalto; past two studies Bruno Mathsson and Jean Risom and a bedroom and living-room representing a variety of designers; then up another level to a space furnished by Charles Eames; and finally to a small balcony overlooking George Nelson’s living area. The quiet simplicity of the rooms and the gentle tones of symphonic music have people talking in whispers. Sighed one woman: ‘I’d like to live here.’
Design for Modern Living (Pathfinder Magazine, 1949) Read More »
In an attempt to define modernism for a broad audience, architect/designer Alexander Girard curated the Exhibition for Modern Living
Modern design implies shape for use, simplicity, new forms to utilize new materials, easier housekeeping, and honest expression of mass production… Up the richly carpeted ramp, viewers walk up to a dining room done by Alvar Aalto; past two studies Bruno Mathsson and Jean Risom and a bedroom and living-room representing a variety of designers; then up another level to a space furnished by Charles Eames; and finally to a small balcony overlooking George Nelson’s living area. The quiet simplicity of the rooms and the gentle tones of symphonic music have people talking in whispers. Sighed one woman: ‘I’d like to live here.’
Design for Modern Living (Pathfinder Magazine, 1949) Read More »
In an attempt to define modernism for a broad audience, architect/designer Alexander Girard curated the Exhibition for Modern Living
Modern design implies shape for use, simplicity, new forms to utilize new materials, easier housekeeping, and honest expression of mass production… Up the richly carpeted ramp, viewers walk up to a dining room done by Alvar Aalto; past two studies Bruno Mathsson and Jean Risom and a bedroom and living-room representing a variety of designers; then up another level to a space furnished by Charles Eames; and finally to a small balcony overlooking George Nelson’s living area. The quiet simplicity of the rooms and the gentle tones of symphonic music have people talking in whispers. Sighed one woman: ‘I’d like to live here.’
Design for Modern Living (Pathfinder Magazine, 1949) Read More »
This article tells the tale of the Japanese Nationalist Masaharu Kageyama (1910 – 1979), a fellow who, in the political landscape of U.S.-occupied Japan, seemed rather like the late Mussolini of Italy: always remembering the storied past of a Japan that no longer existed. Kageyama was something a flat-Earther, choosing the road of the Japanese Nationalist, he held that Emperor Hirohito was indeed divine and that the Fascist vision of an East-Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was achievable, even in 1949.
Japanese Nationalists (Pathfinder Magazine, 1949) Read More »
A news column that is appropriately drenched in the gravitas of the day because it announced that the short-lived age of atomic security that brought W.W. II to a close had come to an end. A new epoch had arrived at 11:00 a.m., September 23, 1949, when President Harry Truman announced
We have evidence that within recent weeks an atomic explosion occurred in the USSR.
With nuclear bombs must come a nuclear strategy:
click here to read about that…
The Soviets Get the Bomb (Pathfinder Magazine, 1949) Read More »
Last week, after the Russians announced they would lift the blockade on May 12 [1949], the airlift took a bow and added a modest nod at the 324-day record:
• 189,247 flights;
• 1,528,250 tons delivered;
• best day’s work: April 16 with 12,947 tons hauled in 1,393 flights.
– [and if the West had not chosen to answer the Soviet challenge in Berlin] there might never have been an Atlantic Pact or a Western German state. The Communists might have gone amok in France and Italy. Russia might have won the Cold War in the first heat.
A Look Back at the Berlin Air-Lift (Pathfinder Magazine, 1949) Read More »
Here is the Pathfinder Magazine article about Air University; established in 1946 by the U.S. Department of War in order to train senior American Air Force officers to serve as strategic thinkers in the realm of national security. In 1949 that meant conceiving of ways to implement a successful strategy in which the Soviet Union would be defeated with nuclear weapons:
At AU’s apex is the Air War College. To its senior officer-students the question of destroying an enemy’s will to resist is grimly real. Killing ten million citizens of an enemy nation is no haphazard problem to the Air War College. In the statistics of modern war, a loss of approximately 4% of a nation’s population saps its will to resist…
Six months after this article was first read, the Soviets tested their first Atomic bomb; click here to read about that event.
Towards a Nuclear Strategy (Pathfinder Magazine, 1949) Read More »
Dale Carnegie (1888 – 1955) was a phenomenon unique to American shores; he was a publishing marvel whose book How To Win Friends and Influence People has sold over fifty million copies since it’s first appearance in 1937.
Similar to his contemporary Napoleon Hill
(1883 – 1970), Carnegie was one the preeminent self-help authors of the last century who recognized that success can be found within all of us if we simply know how to harness those elements properly. He had a strong belief that the powers of self-determination can be mastered in one’s ability to communicate clearly, and his followers are legion.
This article coincided with the printing of his second book, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1948), and explains the author’s philosophy –
… be a good listener, talk in terms of the other man’s interests, and make the other person feel important.
Dale Carnegie on Winning Friends and Influencing People (Collier’s Magazine, 1949) Read More »
